The Korea Financial Intelligence Unit (KoFIU) conducted a survey on 25 registered virtual asset service providers (VASPs) to assess the current state of the domestic virtual asset market and keep relevant statistics up to date.

Survey Overview

(Respondents)  25 VASPs (17 exchange service providers and 8 custody and wallet service providers)

(Survey Method)  Data collected from VASPs

(Period Covered)  July 1, 2024 to December 31, 2024

Key Survey Findings for H2 2024

The price increase in virtual assets and expansion of market size observed from the second half of 2023 in the domestic virtual asset market accelerated in the second half of 2024. Compared with the first half of the same year, average daily trading volume (up KRW1.3 trillion or 22%), total operating profits (up KRW160.2 billion or 28%), and the number of users eligible to trade (up 1.92 million or 25%) all went up. In particular, market capitalization (up KRW51.2 trillion or 91%) and total amount of deposits (up KRW5.7 trillion or 114%) rose significantly.

However, during the same period, the coin-only exchange market experienced declines in average daily trading volume (down KRW 660 million or 81%), market capitalization (down KRW 27.6 billion or 19%), and total operating profits (down KRW 1.1 billion or 8%) due to significant concentration in the KRW-based exchange service providers and termination of business operation of certain coin-only exchange service providers.

External transfers of virtual assets to the registered entities under the travel rule grew somewhat (up 4%), while those transferred to the whitelisted overseas entities and personal digital wallets saw a notable increase (up 38%).

The total size of virtual assets in custody, wallet, and staking services (down KRW 12.3 trillion or 89%) and their number of users (down 196,000 or 99%) both declined significantly as more service providers terminated business operation and the base price of certain custody service providers went down.

* Please refer to the attached PDF for details.