South Korea Tops East Asia in Crypto Market Volume Fueled by AI Tokens

South Korea has claimed the top spot in East Asia for cryptocurrency market volume, reaching $449.1 billion from July 2025 to June 2026. This growth has been largely driven by retail investors actively trading artificial intelligence (AI) tokens, which now dominate the market even over established payment tokens like XRP.

Key AI tokens contributing to this surge include Worldcoin (WLD) with $7.41 billion, SAHARA at $3.2 billion, VIRTUAL with $2.7 billion, BIO at $2 billion, and NEAR with $1.7 billion. The trading volume of AI cryptocurrencies in Korean won surpassed that in Japanese yen by 19.5 times, highlighting South Korea's retail investor focus.

Japan ranks second in the region with a market volume of $228.3 billion, distinguished by its high use of decentralized exchanges (DEX), which account for 34.5% of its service segment. Meanwhile, Hong Kong has solidified its position as the leading institutional crypto hub in East Asia, with institutional platforms making up 16% of its service segment.

Despite China's official ban on crypto services, the P2P transaction segment has grown significantly, now representing 59.1% of the country's crypto economy. Analysts anticipate that South Korea will introduce a law on digital assets in the second half of 2026, which could further shape the market's future.