This photo, taken April 16, 2021, shows signboards showing price movements of bitcoin and other virtual currencies on a local exchange. (Yonhap)
SEOUL, April 1 (Korea Bizwire) — Investors in their 20s and 30s deposited a total of 19.04 trillion won (US$15.6 billion) in South Korea’s major cryptocurrency exchanges last year, data showed Thursday.
The Financial Supervisory Service reported that the five major cryptocurrency exchanges in South Korea were holding investments of 52.8 trillion won as of last year. Among them, 36 percent was from investors in their 20s and 30s.
Sorted by age, investors in their 20s and 30s invested 4.2 trillion won and 14.8 trillion won, respectively.
Compared with the previous year, the aggregate investment amount jumped by 3.6 trillion won and 10.7 trillion won, respectively.
Those in their 40s held the majority of the investments. With holdings worth 17.5 trillion won, they took up 33 percent of all cryptocurrency investments.
The numbers become even larger when taking 25 mid-sized virtual asset service provider (VASP)-certified exchanges in South Korea into account.
As of this year, there were more than 5.3 million investors in their 20s and 30s at the five major cryptocurrency exchanges, accounting for 57.3 percent of all age groups.
Employees at cryptocurrency exchanges were also mostly in their 20s and 30s. More than two-thirds of the staff at Upbit and 70 percent at Bithumb were also younger than 30 years of age.
At Korbit, 87 percent of employees were in their 20s and 30s, while 81 percent and 82 percent at Coinone and Gopax were also in the same age group.
H. M. Kang (hmkang@koreabizwire.com)
