Korean banks sound alarm as altcoins volumes grow in the country

The Korea Federation of Banks (KFB) has recently urged its members to estimate the total number of altcoins their crypto exchange clients are offering to measure risks associated with them, local outlet The Korea Herald reported yesterday.

“One of the criteria that we recommend is the safety of digital assets and that can be measured by the number of digital coins on an exchange. If an exchange deals with too many digital assets, it takes on more risks,” an official at the KFB told the outlet.

More altcoins, more trouble

Per the report, the KFB’s recommendation comes on the heels of some recent changes made to the anti-money laundering guidelines in the country. For example, South Korean are now required to put additional efforts into the monitoring of crypto exchanges as their responsibility for illicit transactions has increased.

Meanwhile, the percentage of Bitcoin trading volumes on the largest Korean exchange UPbit has shrunk to less than 5% recently. Simultaneously, the three biggest crypto trading platforms in the country—Upbit, Bithumb, and Coinone—offer their users more than 150 different altcoins to trade.

Notably, Bitcoin’s dominance—its share of the total crypto market capitalization—has also fallen to 42.9% and continues to decrease.

“Zoo tokens” assemble

As CryptoSlate reported, several meme animal-themed tokens, led by Dogecoin and its imitators, have exploded in popularity—and price—over the past few days. The price of Shiba Inu alone, touted by its developers as a “Dogecoin killer,” has surged by more than 60,000% in just over a month. Not to mention several other “zoo” tokens that are clawing their way out from the depths of hype-fueled social media this very moment.

In its turn, the decentralized finance (DeFi) sector, which also comprises a lot of altcoins, is primed for another explosive summer as it keeps picking up steam. According to a research paper recently published by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, DeFi may even “lead to a paradigm shift in the financial industry.”

In this light, it looks like altcoins’ trading volumes are not going down anytime soon.

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