South Korean Crypto Exchanges Lie Empty with 566K Dormant Foreign Accounts

The South Korean crypto market has a 'ghost town' problem, according to a report by Rep. Park Sang-hyuk. The country's exchanges have 566,352 foreign-held accounts, but only 90 of them were active last month.

This translates to an activation rate of just 0.01%, with the majority of accounts sitting idle and untouched. Bithumb dominates the roster, holding approximately 484,846 of these accounts on its own.

The value of digital assets and cash deposits in these dormant foreign accounts amounts to around 30.36 billion won (approximately $21.9 million). This averages out to roughly $38 per account. The situation is similar for corporate accounts, with only 29 out of 6,590 being active last month.

The root cause of this issue dates back to 2021, when South Korea revised the Act on Reporting and Using Specified Financial Transaction Information. The revisions introduced real-name banking requirements, making it difficult for foreign nationals to access Korean exchanges without a Korean resident registration number and an active domestic banking relationship.