South Korea’s crypto investor base surges over 50% last year

A survey carried out on March 21st across five South Korean crypto exchanges revealed that the number of domestic crypto investors increased by over 50% last year. The amount of crypto owned by South Korean investors is currently worth over 105T won.

According to reports from local media outlet Donga, data received by Democratic Party lawmaker Ahn Do-Jae from five domestic crypto exchanges, including Upbit, Bithumb, Coinone, Korbit, and Gopax, on the 21st, showed there were 9,667,023 investors who had trading accounts on these exchanges at the end of last year (Korbit as of the end of September 2024). The number of South Korea’s crypto investors increased by 52.6% (3,333,439 people), bringing the total value of crypto owned to over 105T won.

The number of crypto investors in their 50s and 60s increased significantly, reaching 1.75M at the end of last year, up 56.4% YoY. The number of crypto investors over 60 also increased sharply, from 371.8K in the same period to 636.7K, up 52.6%.

Number of South Korean crypto investors surges over 50% in 2024

South Korea's crypto investor count jumped over 50%, hitting 9.66 million. Surprisingly, 1 in 4 is over 50, and half of the high-net-worth investors with over 1B KRW are in the same age group. What's driving this shift? Dive in: #Crypto #Investing…

— Satoshi Club Alerts (@satoshi_alerts) March 22, 2025

The number of cryptocurrency investors in South Korea surged by more than 50% last year, reaching 9.66 million. Notably, one in every four cryptocurrency investors and about half of the high-net-worth investors holding more than 1 billion KRW in cryptocurrency are aged 50 or above. Among the 9,135 investors who owned crypto worth more than 1 billion won in five exchanges at the end of last year, 35.2% (3,215) were in their 50s, and 19.9% (1,817) were over 60 years old. The average big investor over 50 years of age owned 2.15 billion won worth of crypto. 

Jess Zeng, mETH protocol ecosystem lead, also noted that South Korea was among Asian countries joining the growing list of countries opening up to institutional crypto investments. She added that increasing institutional capital flows into crypto accelerated the adoption of assets like ETH, with Mantle and mETHProtocol playing key roles in this shift.

“In order to protect investors, a minimum regulatory basis should be established as soon as possible.”

~ Councilman Ahn Do-Jae 

Rep. Ahn stressed the need to establish a minimum regulatory framework promptly’, citing the growing number of older investors and the associated need for investor protection. Rep. Lim Kwang-hyun also pointed out that ‘at a pan-governmental level’, South Korea needed to take thorough measures to enhance the stability of the crypto market and establish sound trading practices that protect investors’ rights.

Bank of Korea (BOK) released first crypto investor data in December 2024

The Bank of Korea’s data, shared by Rep. Lim Kwang-hyun of the Democratic Party of Korea, revealed that the number of cryptocurrency investors in South Korea surged to 15.59 million (approximately 30% of the country’s population) as of November, a rise of 610K from the previous month. Additionally, the total market value of crypto held by Korean investors as of the 25th of December 2024 reached 102.6 trillion won.

The data also showed a significant increase in crypto transactions, which rivaled domestic stock market volumes. In November, the daily domestic crypto transaction volume averaged 14.9 trillion won (roughly $10.2 billion), nearly equaling the combined volume of the KOSPI at 9.9 trillion won and the Kosdaq at 6.9 trillion won. As of December 25th, the total market value of crypto held by Korean investors increased by 76.9% from the previous month. Additionally, funds waiting to be invested, or deposits, totaled 8.8 trillion won during the same period.

Data compiled by South Korean regulators also showed that the number of crypto investors in the country increased by 21% year-on-year in the first half of 2024 to 7.78 million, which was about 15% of the South Korea population of 52 million. The average daily trading volume of crypto jumped 67% to 6 trillion won during the same period, while the market value of crypto in South Korea rose 27% to 55.3 trillion won.

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