South Korea's first violation case of the "Virtual Asset User Protection Act" verdict, with the main offender sentenced to 3 years for manipulating the coin price

PANews February 4 News, according to Yonhap News Agency, the first violation case of the “Virtual Asset User Protection Act” in South Korea has been verdicted. The Seoul Southern District Court sentenced the CEO of a certain crypto trading company to 3 years in prison for manipulating coin prices, imposed a fine of 500 million Korean Won (approximately $385,000), and ordered the recovery of about 846 million Korean Won (approximately $650,000). However, considering Lee’s active cooperation during the trial and his previous detention, the court decided not to revoke his bail and did not detain him. The court found that between July and October 2024, he used automated trading programs to artificially inflate trading volume and repeatedly placed false buy orders to manipulate prices, involving improper gains of about 7.1 billion Korean Won (approximately $5.46 million). This case is the first transferred through the financial regulatory “fast track” since the law took effect in July 2024.