Those in their 20s have highest average value of crypto holdings
The number of South Koreans holding more than 1 billion won ($720,000) in digital assets stood at 10,810 as of Aug. 5, with roughly one-fifth of the population now holding accounts at one of the country's five major cryptocurrency platforms.
According to Financial Supervisory Service data submitted to Rep. Park Seong-hoon of the main opposition People Power Party, the average assets held by those 10,810 at the five exchange services — Upbit, Bithumb, Coinone, Korbit and GOPAX — was 2.23 billion won. This was well over 200 times the average figure for all users of these platforms, which was about 10 million won.
The majority of the wealthy cryptocurrency holders were in their 40s and 50s.
While there were only 137 such crypto investors in their 20s, their average holdings were the highest, at 2.69 billion won per person.
The total number of users across the five exchanges stood at 10.86 million. The largest age group was people in their 30s, totaling 3 million, followed by those in their 40s, 50s and 20s, in that order.
The average of assets was higher for older groups, ranging from 2.06 million won among 20-somethings to 23.4 million won among those aged at least 60.
Park's report showed that 76 percent of the wealthy group with over 1 billion won in crypto used Upbit, which far surpassed the 52 percent market share the platform had among all users.
The aforementioned figures do not include cash deposited to each platform for crypto trading, which typically earns around 2 percent interest.
South Korea to tax cryptocurrency from 2027
The government was set to impose tax on crypto capital gains this year, but it extended a two-year grace period to Jan. 1, 2027 last year. That marked the second delay on taxation of cryptocurrency since the initial 2022 plan to impose a 22 percent tax on annual crypto income exceeding 2.5 million won.
Taxation on the growing cryptocurrency market had been a hot topic here, although the policy encountered fierce political and investor backlash.
FSS data showed that some 10 million users at the five major exchanges held a total of 111.65 trillion won in cryptocurrency. In comparison, South Korea's nominal gross domestic product for 2024 is estimated to be $1.87 trillion, or about 2,590 trillion won.
minsikyoon@heraldcorp.com
