South Korea FSS Boosts AI to Combat Crypto Manipulation

South Korea’s FSS will be rolling out AI-assisted tracking to identify crypto manipulation as it happens

ContentsAI improvements on market manipulationsExplosion of suspicious cryptocurrency activityEnhancing real-time monitoringThe Financial Supervisory Service renewed its VISTA system to add more Nvidia H100 GPUs to enhance the control of suspicious trading and accounts

Officials have claimed that there has been an increase in flagged transactions of virtual assets, and hence, their development has been accelerated through AI that will enhance surveillance of the market.

This year, the FSS dedicated 170 million Korean won to the expansion of internal servers and the purchase of one more H100 GPU

These powerful GPUs are popular in AI training and improve the processing speed of trading data in the platform through large amounts of data.

AI improvements on market manipulations

VISTA was initially launched by FSS in 2024 to examine unfair transactions of virtual assets

In 2009, the agency bought two H100 GPUs and got 220 million Korean won to extend its servers

The AI is now used to search through trading data to identify possible manipulation periods using a sliding-window grid search

The given method facilitates the process of identifying suspicious intervals that used to be identified manually.

Tests of actual performances conducted on completed investigations proved that the system is able to identify all the manipulation periods that have been reported in the past

It also identifies new intervals between suspects that may not be identified using other methods

The FSS has further intended to refine VISTA to detect coordinated market manipulation and process messages that could affect unjust trading of virtual assets

Another AI system is also under consideration in the agency to track the dynamic market trends and identify suspicious transactions, like immediate price jumps or slumps

As it stands, the market trend data is updated on a daily basis.

According to an FSS insider, the agency can purchase more GPUs in case AI capabilities require additional improvement

These additions augment other enforcement techniques, such as a suggested payment suspension mechanism that may prevent suspect transactions prior to the laundering of funds.

Explosion of suspicious cryptocurrency activity

The South Korean authorities cited that more digital transactions, as a result of larger volumes, are difficult to monitor manually

This is 36,684 suspicious transaction reports that local virtual asset providers have already made between January and August 2025, exceeding the total number in 2023 and 2024

According to the data of the Financial Intelligence Unit and the Korea Customs Service, there has been a drastic increase in flagged cases during the last several years

In 2021, the FIU had 199 cases, 10,797 in 2022, 16,076 in 2023, and 19,658 in 2024.

Officials of the customs indicated that 9.56 trillion won of virtual asset cases were sent to prosecutors during 2021 and August 2025

Only about 90% of some 8.62 trillion won was of the type of scam called hwanchigi

The schemes involve the transfer of money across country borders in cryptocurrency without necessarily using the conventional banking system, which has exposed weaknesses of cross-border virtual asset flows.

Enhancing real-time monitoring

The FSS insists that AI-based surveillance will enhance the enforcement potential of the agency

With the integration of powerful computer graphics cards and new algorithms, the authorities are likely to find manipulation sooner and minimize risks in the crypto market

It is hoped that with real-time surveillance, transparency, and exclusion of illicit trading will be increased, which will strengthen the regulation of South Korea’s growing virtual asset industry.

The AI upgrades belong to a wider plan of staying faithful to the market integrity as the digital assets will become more a part and parcel of the financial system

Based on the statement of officials, it is clear that ongoing investment in technologies is needed to remain on track with advanced methods of crypto crime.