South Korea's Bithumb said on Wednesday that serious flaws had left the crypto exchange's internal system susceptible to potential sabotage and failed to prevent an erroneous transfer of more than $40 billion in assets last week, Reuters reported. The country's second-largest virtual asset exchange said it accidentally gave away about 620,000 bitcoins to customers during a promotional event, instead of 620,000 won ($426), triggering a 17% slump in bitcoin's price.

The South Korean SMEs and Startups Agency (KOSME) said on Feb. 8 that it will fully roll out the Small and Medium-Sized Corporations Crisis-Overcoming Alert Service to proactively prevent management crises at small and medium-sized corporations, Chosun.biz reported. The service was presented as a key task in a briefing by agencies under the Ministry of SMEs and Startups on the 12th of last month.

The Il-san mixed-use cultural complex "One Mount" has effectively entered the path to bankruptcy. It comes 1 year and 6 months after the court opened rehabilitation proceedings. If bankruptcy is finalized, there is concern that lessors who purchased units and commercial tenants may not be able to recover their investment funds and deposits, Chosun.biz reported. According to legal sources, the Seoul Bankruptcy Court on Feb. 5 decided to discontinue rehabilitation proceedings for One Mount.

South Korea's financial market watchdog said on Monday local exchange Bithumb's unintentional giveaway of more than $40 billion in bitcoin to customers raises the need for tougher regulations to address the vulnerabilities of cryptocurrencies, Reuters reported. The cryptocurrency exchange said on Saturday it had accidentally given away the bitcoin to customers as promotional rewards, triggering a sharp selloff on the exchange.

A South Korean crypto exchange accidentally credited users with billions of dollars’ worth of Bitcoin this week, triggering a flash crash in the platform’s listed value of the token, Decrypt.com reported. Instead of airdropping users 2,000 won (a sum worth $1.37 at writing), the exchange, Bithumb, reportedly sent 2,000 BTC apiece, users said. That massive sum was worth some $142 million at writing, with Bitcoin recently trading around $71,000. Read more.

South Korea’s exports started the year on a strong note, with outbound shipments surging in January on more working days and robust semiconductor demand, the Wall Street Journal reported. Exports from Asia’s fourth-largest economy jumped 34% from a year earlier to $65.85 billion, following a 13% increase in December, according to preliminary data released by the trade ministry on Sunday. The January surge had been widely expected because of 3.5 additional working days due to the Lunar New Year holidays shifting to mid-February this year. That was much stronger than expectations.

The South Korean Supreme Court announced on January 28 that it will expand support for litigation costs in personal bankruptcy procedures for small business owners, amid a surge in personal rehabilitation cases, Chosun.com reported. Under the recently revised "Regulations on the Operation of the Litigation Assistance System," small business owners with annual sales of up to 300 million Korean won will be eligible for "litigation assistance" starting from the 1st of next month.

South Korean President Lee Jae Myung ​said on Wednesday if Washington introduced higher U.S. tariffs on semiconductor imports, it would likely boost U.S. prices, playing down concerns ‌about the proposed duty, Reuters reported. U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has said that South Korean and Taiwanese chipmakers may face tariffs of up to 100% unless they commit to increased production on American soil. Lee said that given South Korean and Taiwanese chipmakers' dominance of the market, a 100% U.S. import duty would likely sharply raise prices for chip products in the United States.

South Korea is tightening its grip on how crypto platforms reach users, using app stores as an enforcement lever as regulators sharpen the boundary between compliant digital finance and unregistered crypto activity, Decrypt.com reported. The country has advanced legislation establishing a legal framework for security token offerings, creating a regulated pathway for blockchain-based issuance and trading of tokenized securities.