South Korean cryptocurrency giants Upbit and Bithumb have announced significant commitments to enhance user safety, pledging over $100 million to crypto reserves. This move follows tightened regulations from the South Korean government, requiring exchanges to store a minimum of 80% of user assets in cold wallets – offline storage that significantly reduces risk of online hacks. 80% of assets must be stored in cold wallets per regulation. However, this is not a complete solution and reserves can’t account for all possible scenarios. This brings focus on the growing importance of reserves as a financial safety net to protect users even during unprecedented situations like major system failures or sophisticated attacks. These reserves set a new gold standard for user protection in the South Korean cryptocurrency market.