The weekly survey was conducted Tuesday through Thursday, involving 1,004 adults across the nation. It had a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points.

The latest reading marked the lowest since the fourth week of September when 65 percent of people surveyed said they approved of how the president managed state affairs.

The sharp decline apparently follows the recent controversy over a government move to regulate, if not ban, transactions of virtual currency, including market leader bitcoin.

Thousands of people have personally visited the website of the presidential office Cheong Wa Dae to express their opposition after Justice Minister Park Sang-ki hinted at a possible shutdown of local exchanges for cryptocurrency late last week.

One of such petitions has garnered more than 200,000 signatories, the threshold that requires Cheong Wa Dae to offer an official response. The presidential office is expected to do so in the near future. The government earlier said no final decision has yet been made but that a shutdown was still an option.

Of all respondents, 24 percent said they did not approve of how the president managed state affairs, up 7 points from a week earlier.

The ruling Democratic Party largely remained unaffected by a sharp dip in the president's popularity. Its approval rating remained unchanged at 46 percent, while that of the main opposition Liberty Korea Party lost 2 points to 9 percent.

The liberal People's Party's approval rating stood still at 4 percent. (Yonhap)