Stablecoins account for nearly 50% of South Korea’s crypto outflows in Q1, officials say

Korea’s crypto outflows hit nearly 57 trillion won in Q1, with stablecoins making up almost half as users move funds to overseas exchanges.

Almost half of the cryptocurrencies sent abroad from South Korea’s major crypto exchanges in Q1 were dollar-based stablecoins, Democratic Party lawmaker Min Byung-duk revealed, citing data from the Financial Supervisory Service.

According to Byung-duk, around 56.8 trillion won (around $40.6 billion) worth of cryptocurrencies were transferred overseas between January and March from five crypto exchanges: Upbit, Bithumb, Coinone, Cobbit, and Gopax. Of this amount, 26.87 trillion won, or 47.3%, was in stablecoins like Tether (USDT) and USD Coin (USDC).

The report notes that stablecoins may be widely used because they are the key currencies for buying tokens from overseas crypto exchanges such as Binance or Bybit. Still, stablecoin outflows fell in March as the crypto market slowed and fewer users turned to overseas crypto exchanges.

Crypto adoption keeps climbing in South Korea. As of February, 16.29 million people in the country had crypto accounts — about 32% of the population — according to data submitted to Rep. Cha Gyu-geun of the Rebuilding Korea Party. The numbers were based on user accounts from South Korea’s five major exchanges: Upbit, Bithumb, Coinone, Korbit, and Gopax, and they show steady growth through early 2024.

It’s not just regular investors either. Nearly one in five public officials who filed asset declarations this year reported holding crypto. Out of 2,047 officials, 411 listed crypto-related assets in their declarations.

Some of them hold key positions, including 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.