Down to $200 one day, Pixels founder had $2.4M the next: Luke Barwikowski, X Hall of Flame  

South Korea is tightening rules around digital asset transactions as it prepares to allow institutional players into its crypto market, introducing new guidelines for nonprofit crypto sales and stricter listing standards for exchanges.On May 20, the Financial Services Commission (FSC) of South Korea said during its fourth Virtual Asset Committee meeting that it had finalized sweeping new measures.Set to take effect in June, the updated rules allow both nonprofit organizations and virtual asset exchanges to sell cryptocurrencies, but under new compliance standards.Nonprofit entities must have at least five years of audited financial history to be permitted to receive and sell virtual asset donations. They will also need to establish internal Donation Review Committees to assess the appropriateness of each donation and the liquidation strategy.To reduce risks of money laundering, all donations must be routed through verified Korean won exchange accounts, with verification responsibilities placed on banks, exchanges and the nonprofits themselves.Furthermore, only cryptocurrencies listed on at least three major domestic exchanges will be eligible, and liquidation is expected to occur immediately upon receipt.Guidelines regarding nonprofits selling crypto donations. Source: FSCRelated: Top South Korean presidential hopefuls support legalizing Bitcoin ETFsExchange sales to be restrictedCrypto exchanges will be allowed to liquidate user fees paid in crypto, but only to cover operational costs. Sales will be capped at daily limits, typically no more than 10% of the total planned amount.Furthermore, sales will only be permitted for the top 20 tokens by market cap across five won-based exchanges. Importantly, exchanges are barred from selling tokens on their own platforms to prevent conflicts of interest.South Korea is also tightening standards for listing digital assets. The revised rules aim to curb instability from sudden price spikes by requiring a minimum circulating supply before a token is allowed to trade and temporarily restricting market orders post-listing.So-called zombie tokens (with low volume and thin market caps) and memecoins without clear utility will face more scrutiny. For instance, exchanges must delist tokens if they fail to meet liquidity benchmarks or community engagement thresholds.Starting in June, exchanges and nonprofits can apply for real-name accounts to facilitate these sales. Later this year, the FSC plans to extend real-name accounts to listed firms and professional investors.Cointelegraph contacted South Korea’s Digital Asset eXchange Association for comment, but had not received a response by publication.Related: RedotPay enters South Korea with crypto-powered payment cardsSouth Korean candidates push pro-crypto agendaSouth Korea’s Democratic Party leader Lee Jae-myung has proposed launching a stablecoin pegged to the Korean won, aiming to curb capital flight and bolster the country’s financial autonomy.Speaking at a recent policy forum, Lee said a won-based stablecoin could help retain domestic wealth and reduce dependence on foreign-backed digital currencies such as USDt (USDT) and USDC (USDC).The initiative is part of Lee’s broader push for digital asset reforms, which also includes legalizing spot crypto exchange-traded funds (ETFs).His rival, Kim Moon-soo of the ruling People Power Party, has also expressed support for introducing spot crypto ETFs, signaling bipartisan momentum on the issue.Magazine: NBA star Tristan Thompson misses $32B in Bitcoin by taking $82M contract in cash

Haliey Welch, better known as the “Hawk tuah girl,” says the Federal Bureau of Investigation briefly probed her after her “memecoin disaster” — the failed launch of a token in her image that she promoted. Welch said in a May 21 episode of her “Talk Tuah” podcast that the FBI showed up at her grandmother’s house looking to speak to her over the Hawk Tuah (HAWK) crypto token, which many crypto commentators have called an exit scam.“After the coin launch, the feds came to granny’s house and knocked on her door, and she called me, having a heart attack, saying: ‘The FBI is here after you, what have you done?’”Welch said she handed over her phone to the FBI and met with agents who “interrogated me, asking me questions and everything else related to crypto.”“They cleared me, I was good to go,” Welch said. Welch went viral for her response about an oral sex technique in a vox pop interview posted to YouTube in June. The HAWK memecoin, based on her viral catchphrase, launched in early December and almost immediately lost 90% of its value and blockchain analytics firm Bubblemaps’ alleged insider wallets and snipers bought up and dumped massive quantities of the token at launch.Haliey Welch speaking on her Talk Tuah podcast about the HAWK memecoin. Source: YouTubeWelch said on her podcast that the Securities and Exchange Commission also asked for her phone, and she sent it off “for two or three days” before she was cleared.Welch’s lawyer James Sallah told TMZ in March that the SEC “closed the investigation without making any findings against, or seeking any monetary sanctions from, Haliey.”“I trusted the wrong people”Welch admitted knowing very little about crypto before the HAWK memecoin and said she “trusted the wrong people” for the launch.She claimed a company, which she said she couldn’t name for legal reasons, was in full control of her X account, which posted videos of her promoting the memecoin.Welch said she was sent lines to record on video, which were then posted on her X account by someone she trusted but could also not legally name.She added that on the day of HAWK’s launch, she “kind of knew something was up” and was pulled into a room where a team of people told her to talk on a livestream with YouTuber Stephen Findeisen, better known as Coffeezilla.“Coffeezilla got on there and they’re like ‘Mute it, mute it,’” Welch said. “Nobody warned me about this guy at all, like nobody at all, they didn’t tell me he was like a crypto wizard, that’s exactly what he is — he ate me the fuck up.”Related: Justin Sun to attend Trump’s dinner with memecoin backersWelch said she was only paid a marketing fee and “did not make a dime from the coin itself,” which she said had been totally spent on legal and public relations fees.A now-deleted post where Welch shared the HAWK token’s tokenomics before it launched. Source: XDespite being cleared of any legal wrongdoing, Welch took some accountability, admitting that she let many of her fans down who invested in the coin:“It makes me feel really bad that they trusted me, and I led them to something that I did not have enough knowledge about. I did not have enough knowledge about crypto to be getting involved with it. And I knew that, but I got talked into it, and I trusted the wrong people.”A group of HAWK buyers sued the alleged creators of the token in December, claiming Alex Schultz, the token’s backing Tuah the Moon Foundation, the token launchpad overHere Limited, and its founder Clinton So promoted and sold HAWK as an unregistered security.Welch wasn’t named as a defendant.Magazine: ‘Normie degens’ go all in on sports fan crypto tokens for the rewards

The US Securities and Exchange Commission has charged crypto platform Unicoin and three of its executives, alleging they made false and misleading statements about its crypto assets that raised $100 million from investors.The SEC said on May 20 that it charged Unicoin CEO Alex Konanykhin, board member Silvina Moschini, and former investment chief Alex Dominguez with misleading investors about certificates that conveyed rights to receive Unicoin tokens and stock.Mark Cave, associate director in the SEC’s Division of Enforcement, claimed the trio “exploited thousands of investors with fictitious promises that its tokens, when issued, would be backed by real-world assets including an international portfolio of valuable real estate holdings.” Related: SEC crypto task force to release first report ‘in the next few months’“The real estate assets were worth a mere fraction of what the company claimed, and the majority of the company’s sales of rights certificates were illusory,” Cave added.The SEC’s complaint, filed in a Manhattan federal court, charged Unicoin and the three executives with various securities laws violations and asks for permanent injunctive relief, along with paying back the allegedly ill-gotten gains.Magazine: SEC’s U-turn on crypto leaves key questions unanswered