Whoa! South Korea's Crypto Exodus Reaches a Staggering 57 Trillion Won in Q1!

Stablecoins Lead the Charge as Investors Flock to Overseas Exchanges

Holy moly, folks! South Korea's crypto scene just witnessed a mind-blowing exodus of nearly 57 trillion won (that's around $40.6 billion, in case you're wondering) in the first quarter of this year! And get this: almost half of that staggering amount was in stablecoins like Tether (USDT) and USD Coin (USDC). Democratic Party lawmaker Min Byung-duk dropped this bombshell, citing data straight from the Financial Supervisory Service.

From January to March, five of Korea's biggest crypto exchanges - Upbit, Bithumb, Coinone, Cobbit, and Gopax - saw a whopping 56.8 trillion won worth of cryptocurrencies jet off overseas. And guess what? A jaw-dropping 26.87 trillion won of that, which is a whopping 47.3%, was in those trusty stablecoins!

Now, here's the kicker: stablecoins are the go-to currency for snagging tokens from international crypto giants like Binance or Bybit. But hold onto your hats, because stablecoin outflows actually took a dip in March as the crypto market hit the brakes and fewer users ventured to overseas exchanges.

Crypto Craze Sweeps South Korea

Listen up, because crypto adoption in South Korea is off the charts! As of February, a mind-boggling 16.29 million people in the country had crypto accounts - that's a whopping 32% of the entire population! Rep. Cha Gyu-geun from the Rebuilding Korea Party spilled the beans, and the data's based on user accounts from those same five major exchanges: Upbit, Bithumb, Coinone, Korbit, and Gopax. And let me tell you, the numbers are only climbing higher through early 2024!

But wait, there's more! It's not just your average Joe getting in on the action. Nearly one in five public officials who filed their asset declarations this year reported holding crypto. Out of 2,047 officials, a staggering 411 listed crypto-related assets in their declarations. And some of them hold some pretty big titles, like the Secretary General of the Labor-Management Development Foundation, the President of the Korean National Police University, and the Vice President of the Korea Water Resources Corporation. Talk about crypto going mainstream!