Korean Exchanges Siphon Off $1.81 Billion Stablecoins to Overseas Markets

In June, South Korea's five largest crypto exchanges transferred out $1.81 billion in stablecoins to overseas exchanges, leaving net outflows of $367 million.

This represents a significant portion of South Korean investors' net purchases of overseas stocks in the same month, which totaled $472.54 million. The share of net stablecoin outflows to net purchases of overseas stocks has risen sharply from around 20% in the past to about 77.6% this time.

The reason for these large stablecoin outflows is largely due to the demand for derivatives trading, dollar-based real-world assets (RWA), decentralized finance (DeFi) and staking services available on overseas exchanges but not on domestic ones.