FTX’s Key Partner Busan City Drops Its Plans of Global Crypto Exchanges

The contagion of the collapse of the crypto exchange FTX is widespread and has a widespread impact across the entire crypto space. South Korea’s blockchain city Busan has recently dropped its plans for establishing global crypto exchanges.

Crypto exchange FTX was one of the key partners for Busan city. But amid its dramatic collapse, Busan is now reconsidering its plans for onboarding any third-party exchanges. In its recent announcement, Busan’s steering committee comprising 18 members said that city doesn’t plan to move ahead with any of the five exchanges that had agreed earlier this year to assist them. These five exchanges include Binance, Crypto.com, Gate.io, Huobi Global, and FTX.

The steering committee is a municipal advisory body in south Korea that looks after providing advice on the operation and establishment of the crypto exchange. They are also responsible for strengthening the system through external cooperation.

The recent development from Busan City comes amid the growing negative sentiment over centralized exchanges. The meltdown of the crypto exchange FTX last month has served as a catalyst for Busan city to arrive at this decision.

Now, the city administration is having second thoughts on the inclusion of such private exchanges in their plans. One of the panel members said the problems with “FTX and other major global exchanges seem to have influenced [the decision]”. Another panel member said that the exchanges were never an integral part of the city’s plan. They were only here to provide initial liquidity.

Busan City’s Local Crypto Exchange

Busan city is confident in moving ahead with its own blockchain goals without any third-party assistance. They want to build a local exchange that would divide digital assets into securities and non-securities.

The exchange would also function as a market management organization looking after listing and evaluation, market monitoring and supervision, as well as deposit and settlement. Speaking on it, Busan Mayor Park Hyung-joon said:

“As Busan grows into a digital financial center, fostering the blockchain industry and establishing a digital asset exchange are very important.”,“Based on the various experiences and expertise of the members of the promotion committee, I ask that you put your heads together and think about the establishment and policy direction of the Busan Exchange, the future food of Busan.”.

Busan City is a regulatory-free zone for blockchain technologies. The city is planning to implement different blockchain applications such as finance, tourism, public safety, and logistics. Since then, the local government has been actively pursuing its blockchain plans.