Korean Crypto Market Suffers 'Crypto Exodus'

Korea's cryptocurrency market is experiencing a sharp decline in trading activity, with more than 80% of investors stopping their activities. According to data from Korea's Financial Supervisory Service (FSS), only 19.5% of users who completed Know Your Customer (KYC) verification and were eligible to trade on the country's five largest crypto exchanges actively traded over the past month.

The number of active users fell by nearly half in a year and a half, from 35.7% at the end of January last year to 19.5% as of June this year. The total number of trade-eligible users also declined by more than 400,000 in three months after peaking at 11.56 million at the end of March.

CryptoQuant's Ki Young Ju attributed the decline to the movement of investment funds into the stock market amid a surge in Korean equities and the fact that domestic exchanges focus on spot trading while overseas exchanges offer futures, leverage, and other investment products.