Korean Crypto Investors: Who Are They?

As virtual asset ETFs are listed on public stock exchanges and cement their status as institutional assets, evaluating societal perceptions and latent investment demands—as well as tracking their longitudinal shifts—has emerged as a paramount objective for maintaining financial market stability and supporting the long-term growth of the industry. Domestically, the primary official data source on this subject is the "Survey on Virtual Asset Service Providers," published semi-annually by the Financial Services Commission (FSC). This report aggregates figures prepared and submitted by 21 domestic virtual asset service providers (14 exchanges and 7 wallet/custody providers), offering metrics on local user counts and asset holdings categorized by age cohorts. Nevertheless, by virtue of their intrinsic characteristics, virtual assets are actively transacted not only through centralized service providers but also via peer-to-peer (P2P) wallet transactions, decentralized exchanges (DEXs), and offshore platforms. Yet, a comprehensive official aggregation encompassing all these distinct channels has not yet been established within South Korea. Furthermore, systematic access has been limited to quantitative data points such as active account volumes and trading metrics, leaving a vacuum in qualitative insights regarding primary holding purposes and prospective investment agendas. Infusing such qualitative metadata would immensely bolster the ability to analyze the domestic virtual asset market from multi-dimensional angles, thereby enhancing the formulation and implementation of supportive regulatory policies. Accordingly, on December 2, 2024, Hashed Open Research executed a comprehensive survey via Opensurvey, a consumer data platform, targeting a sample size of 2,000 internet users aged between 20 and 69. The research evaluated per-capita virtual asset holding scales, underlying investment rationales, prospective allocation intentions, preferred domestic and offshore exchange interfaces alongside deposit volumes, DEX utilization rates, and preferred asset custody architectures. Data collection was facilitated via a mobile application interface leveraging Opensurvey’s proprietary panel (margin of error ±2.19%p at a 95% confidence level), with the panel's demographic age composition calibrated to the 2024 figures provided by Statistics Korea.