Crypto exchange KuCoin said that it may reenter South Korea after its platform was blocked in the country. 

On March 21, South Korean regulators ordered Google Play to block access to exchanges that were not compliant with the requirements needed to operate in the country. On April 11, South Korea’s Financial Services Commission (FSC) ordered the Apple Store to block unregistered crypto exchanges. 

KuCoin was among those affected by the country’s crackdown on unregistered platforms that were previously available. While the platform is now unavailable to South Koreans, it has not fully abandoned the jurisdiction. 

In an exclusive interview with Cointelegraph, KuCoin’s newly appointed CEO, BC Wong, said that the crypto exchange has plans to reenter the country. 

Regulators drive global players away from local markets

Wong told Cointelegraph that before the exchange can reenter South Korea, it plans to secure compliance with major jurisdictions first. He said: 

“The resource is there. We need to go one by one. Our strategy will always be that major jurisdictions come first, which means the United States, EU, China, India, and maybe after that, Australia.”

Wong confirmed to Cointelegraph that KuCoin representatives had started speaking with regulators. The executive said that operating in crypto is very similar to traditional financial markets, where there’s a need for a clear background in each jurisdiction. 

The KuCoin CEO also said that regulators are stricter compared to three years ago. He said that this could be a move to drive global players away from local crypto markets. 

“I’m not so sure that if the regulators’ intention is to regulate the global market or just simply, they want to pave the way to get all the global kind of players to be out from their market, and pave the road for their domestic exchange,” Wong added. 

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KuCoin’s EU CEO shares regulatory challenges in Europe

Oliver Stauber, who joined KuCoin as its European Union CEO, told Cointelegraph that there are also difficulties operating in the EU, even with the bloc’s Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) in place. 

Stauber, who previously worked as the chief legal officer of Bitpanda, told Cointelegraph that while MiCA licenses have a passporting feature, which should allow license holders to provide services across the EU, the executive said that some jurisdictions interpret the laws differently. 

Stauber said that some jurisdictions may say that licenses were “wrongly assessed,” which gets in the way of operating in some jurisdictions.  

“MiCA was said to have a level playing field in crypto all over Europe. However, as long as there are players who are not playing by the books, you know it’s getting quite messy and difficult,” Stauber told Cointelegraph. 

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The European Union is set to impose sweeping Anti-Money Laundering (AML) rules that will ban privacy-preserving tokens and anonymous cryptocurrency accounts from 2027.

Under the new Anti-Money Laundering Regulation (AMLR), credit institutions, financial institutions and crypto asset service providers (CASPs) will be prohibited from maintaining anonymous accounts or handling privacy-preserving cryptocurrencies.

“Article 79 of the AMLR establishes strict prohibitions on anonymous accounts […]. Credit institutions, financial institutions, and crypto-asset service providers are prohibited from maintaining anonymous accounts,” according to the AML Handbook, published by European Crypto Initiative (EUCI).

The regulation is part of a broader AML framework that includes bank and payment accounts, passbooks and safe-deposit boxes, “crypto-asset accounts allowing anonymisation of transactions,” and “accounts using anonymity-enhancing coins.”

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“The regulations (the AMLR, AMLD and AMLAR) are final, and what remains is the ‘fine print’ — aka the interpretation of some of the requirements through the so-called implementing and delegated acts,” according to Vyara Savova, senior policy lead at the EUCI.

She added that much of the implementation will come through so-called implementing and delegated acts, which are mostly handled by the European Banking Authority:

“This means that the EUCI is still actively working on these level two acts by providing feedback to the public consultations, as some of the implementation details are yet to be finalized.”

“However, the broader framework is final, so centralized crypto projects (CASPs under MiCA) need to keep it in mind when determining their internal processes and policies,” Savova said.

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EU to increase oversight of crypto service providers

Under the new regulatory framework, CASPs operating in at least six member states will be under direct AML supervision.

In the initial stage, AMLA plans to select 40 entities, with at least one entity per member state, according to EUCI’s AML Handbook. The selection process is set to start on July 1, 2027.

AMLA will use “materiality thresholds” to ensure that only firms with “substantial operations presence in multiple jurisdictions are considered for direct supervision.”

The thresholds include a “minimum of 20,000 customers residing in the host member state,” or a total transaction volume of over 50 million euros ($56 million).

Other notable measures include mandatory customer due diligence on transactions above 1,000 euros ($1,100).

These updates come as the EU ramps up its regulatory oversight of the crypto industry, building on previous measures such as the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA).

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Opinion by: Merav Ozair, PhD

Lately, stablecoins are everywhere — this time around, headed by “traditional” financial institutions. Bank of America and Standard Chartered are considering launching their own stablecoin, joining JPMorgan, which launched its stablecoin, JPM Coin — rebranded as Kinexys Digital Payments — to facilitate transactions with their institutional clients on their blockchain platform, Kinexys (formerly Onyx). 

Mastercard plans to bring stablecoins to the mainstream, joining Bleap Finance, a crypto startup. The aim is to enable stablecoins to be spent directly onchain — without conversions or intermediaries — seamlessly integrating blockchain assets with Mastercard’s global payment rails. 

In early April 2025, Visa joined the Global Dollar Network (USDG) stablecoin consortium. The company will become the first traditional finance player to join the consortium. In late March 2025, NYSE parent Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) announced that it is investigating applications for using USDC (USDC) stablecoin and US Yield Coin within its derivatives exchanges, clearinghouses, data services and other markets.

Why the renewed interest in stablecoins?

Regulatory clarity and acceptance

Recent moves by regulatory bodies in the United States and Europe have created more straightforward guidelines for cryptocurrency use. In the US, Congress is considering legislation to establish formal standards for stablecoins, bolstering confidence among banks and fintech companies.

The European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets regulation requires that stablecoin issuers operating within the EU adhere to specific financial standards, including special reserve requirements and risk mitigation. In the UK, financial authorities plan to conduct consultations to draft rules governing stablecoin use, further facilitating their acceptance and adoption.

The Trump administration executive order 14067, “Strengthening American Leadership in Digital Financial Technology,” supports and “promotes the development and growth of lawful and legitimate dollar-backed stablecoins worldwide” while “prohibiting the establishment, issuance, circulation, and use of a CBDC within the jurisdiction of the United States.”

This executive order, followed by Trump’s World Liberty Financial company launching a stablecoin called USD1, signals that this is the era of stablecoins, particularly those pegged to the USD.

Do we need more stablecoins?

The stablecoin landscape

There are over 200 stablecoins, most pegged to the US dollar. Two established stablecoins dominate the stablecoin landscape. Tether’s USDt (USDT), the oldest stablecoin, launched in 2014 and USDC, launched in 2018, capturing 65% and 28% of stablecoins market cap, respectively — both are centralized fiat collateralized. 

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In third place, a relatively new one, USDe, launched in February 2024, holds about 2% of the stablecoin market cap and has an unconventional mechanism based on derivatives in the crypto market. Although it runs on a DeFi protocol on Ethereum, it incorporates centralized features since centralized exchanges hold the derivatives positions.

There are three primary mechanisms of stablecoins:

• Centralized, fiat-collateralized: A centralized company maintains reserves of the assets in a bank or trust (e.g., for currency) or a vault (e.g., for gold) and issues tokens (i.e., stablecoins) that represent a claim on the underlying asset.

• Decentralized, cryptocurrency-collateralized: A stablecoin is backed by other decentralized crypto assets. One example can be found in the MakerDAO stablecoin Dai (DAI), which is pegged to the US dollar and encapsulates the features of decentralization. While a central organization controls centralized stablecoins, no one entity controls the issuance of DAI.

• Decentralized, uncollateralized: This mechanism ensures the stability of the coin’s value by controlling its supply through an algorithm executed by a smart contract. In some ways, this is no different from central banks, which also don’t rely on reserve assets to keep the value of their currency stable. The difference is that central banks, like the Federal Reserve, set a monetary policy publicly based on well-understood parameters, and its status as the issuer of legal tender provides the credibility of that policy.

Depegging, risk and fraudsters

Stablecoins are supposed to be stable. They were created to overcome the inherent volatility of cryptocurrencies. To maintain their stability, stablecoins should (1) be pegged to a stable asset and (2) follow a mechanism that sustains the peg.

If stablecoins are pegged to gold or electricity, they will reflect the volatility of these assets and thus may not be the best choice if you are seeking a no-risk (or close to no-risk) asset.

USDe maintains a peg to the USD through delta hedging. It uses short and long positions in futures, which generates a 27% yield annually — significantly higher than the 12% annual yield of other stablecoins pegged to the USD. Derivative positions are considered risky — the higher the risk, the higher the return. Therefore, it encapsulates an inherited risk due to its reliance on derivatives, which runs counter to the purpose of stablecoins. 

Stablecoins have been around for more than a decade. During this time, there were no major depegging fiascos other than the case of Terra. The collapse of Terra was not the result of a reserve problem or mechanism but rather the act of fraudsters and manipulators.

TerraUSD (UST) had a built-in arbitrage mechanism between UST and the Terra blockchain native coin, LUNA. To create UST, you needed to burn LUNA.

To entice traders to burn LUNA and create UST, the creators of the Terra blockchain offered a 19.5% yield on staking, which is crypto terminology for earning 19.5% interest on a deposit, through what they called the Anchor protocol.

Such a high interest rate is simply not sustainable. Someone has to borrow at such a rate or above for the lender to receive 19.5% interest. This is how banks make their profit — they charge high interest on borrowing (such as mortgages or loans) and provide low interest on savings (such as a traditional savings account or a certificate of deposit account). Analysis of the Anchor protocol in January 2022 showed it was at a loss.

One of the allegations in the lawsuits against Terraform Labs’ founders is that the Anchor protocol was a Ponzi scheme.

In March 2025, Galaxy Digital reached a $200-million settlement with the New York Attorney General over claims the crypto investing company promoted the LUNA digital asset without disclosing its interest in the token.

In January 2025, Do Kwon, founder of Terra, was found liable for securities fraud and is facing multiple charges in the US, including fraud, wire fraud and commodities fraud. If regulators are interested in preventing future cases like Terra, they should focus on how to deter fraudsters and manipulators from issuing or engaging with stablecoins.

Decentralization: Rekindling the premise of Bitcoin

Most stablecoins are centralized assets collateralized. They are controlled by a company that could conduct unauthorized use of customers’ funds or falsely claim that reserves fully back a stablecoin.

To prevent companies’ misconduct, regulators should closely monitor these companies and set rules similar to securities laws. 

Centralized stablecoins run counter to the notion of blockchain and the premise of Bitcoin. When Bitcoin was launched, it was supposed to be a payment platform free of intermediaries, not controlled by any company, bank or government — a decentralized mechanism — run by the people for the people.

If a stablecoin is centralized, it should follow the regulations of any other centralized asset.

Maybe it’s time to rekindle the premise of Bitcoin but in a more “stable” fashion. Developing an algorithmic, decentralized stablecoin that is free of any control of a company, bank or government and reviving the core notion of blockchain.

Opinion by: Merav Ozair, PhD.

This article is for general information purposes and is not intended to be and should not be taken as legal or investment advice. The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed here are the author’s alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.