The South Korean cryptocurrency market faces regulatory bottlenecks, with an estimated 160 trillion won flowing to overseas platforms last year

Due to domestic regulatory restrictions, South Koreans transferred over 160 trillion won (approximately 110 billion USD) to foreign cryptocurrency exchanges last year. Analysis indicates that the delay in the implementation of South Korea's "Basic Act on Digital Assets" has created a regulatory vacuum, forcing investors to turn to overseas platforms.

Research has found that cryptocurrency has become a major investment asset in South Korea, with the number of investors rising to 10 million, and the revenue scale of trading platforms like Upbit and Bithumb reaching trillions of won. However, the report shows that despite South Korean investors actively trading cryptocurrencies and increasingly turning to overseas platforms like Binance and Bybit, the growth of domestic trading platforms has stagnated. Nevertheless, the regulatory vacuum has raised concerns among market participants, who worry that domestic centralized cryptocurrency trading platforms are increasingly struggling to compete with overseas platforms that offer more complex trading products.