Tokyo and Seoul-based digital asset manager Hyperithm has secured a licence from the Korean Financial Intelligence Unit (KoFIU) to continue its service in Korea.
Crypto-related businesses are required to obtain the Virtual Asset Service Provider (VASP) in Korea to carry on their operations in the country as per the revised act on the reporting and use of specific financial transaction information.
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This act, which came into effect this March, classifies virtual asset service providers as ‘financial institutions’ in Korea. Therefore, such institutions are now needed to abide by Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) guidelines as same as other financial institutions.
According to data by KoFIU, 29 companies have acquired the VASP licence in Korea, including Hyperithm, as of 23 December 2021. The firm filed for the license in September this year.
Hyperithm Co-CEOs Lloyd Lee and Sangrok Oh said: “We plan to faithfully fulfil our obligations to comply with relevant regulations, such as the Travel Rule, which will be implemented from March next year.”
Established in 2018, Hyperithm provides digital asset management and execution brokerage to high net-worth individuals and institutional investors, including publicly listed companies, family offices, venture capitals, and crypto exchanges and miners.
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By GlobalDataThe firm raised $11m in a recent Series B round from Coinbase Ventures Wemade Tree, Hashed and Samsung Next among other investors.
In October this year, Korean robo-adviser Fount raked in $33.4m to support the further development of its machine learning-based platform and the hiring of new resources.
At the time, Fount also said that it plans to invest an additional $85m for the development of technology in the next years.
