The Korea Financial Intelligence Unit (KoFIU) and the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) conducted a survey on 26 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) 26 VASPs (17 exchange service providers and 9 custody and wallet service providers)
(Survey Method) Data collected from VASPs
(Period Covered) January 1, 2026 to June 30, 2026
Key Survey Findings for H1 2026
In the first half of 2026, domestic virtual asset exchange service providers saw drops in market capitalization (down KRW28.3 trillion or 33%), average daily trading volume (down KRW2.3 trillion or 44%), and total amount of deposits in KRW (down KRW2.9 trillion or 35%). The maximum drawdown ratio was 69 percent, which stood at a higher level in comparison to domestic stock market indices (55.1 percent for KOSPI and 31.8 percent for KOSDAQ) over the same period.
With KRW-based exchange service providers continuing to dominate the market, the market capitalization of coin-only exchange service providers stood at only 0.6 percent of the total market capitalization. Both KRW-based exchange service providers and coin-only exchange service providers saw drops in average daily trading volume (down KRW2.3 trillion or 44 percent and down KRW450 million or 55 percent, respectively). The monthly turnover ratio also showed a significant gap in transactions volumes between KRW-based exchange service providers (100 to 201 percent) and coin-only exchange service providers (2 to 9 percent).
In the first half of 2026, there were 673 different types of virtual assets in circulation excluding the ones cross-listed on multiple exchanges, a drop of 5 percent from 712 at the end of 2025. There were 234 different types of exclusively listed virtual assets whose market capitalization stood at KRW0.6 trillion, which constituted one percent of the total market capitalization (KRW58.9 trillion). However, 93 exclusively listed virtual assets (or 40 percent of them) each had a market capitalization of KRW100 million or less, which calls for caution from users due to concerns over liquidity crunch and extreme price volatility.
The overall amount of external transfers of virtual assets to registered entities dropped 41 percent from the previous six months. External transfers subject to the travel rule accounted for 15 percent and transactions to the whitelisted overseas entities and personal digital wallets accounted for 83 percent, showing similar trends as in the previous survey period. External transfers of less than KRW1 million amounted to KRW1.6 trillion, accounting for 2 percent of the total volume of external transfers but 63 percent when viewed in terms of the number of users.
The number of virtual asset users (accounts) eligible to trade edged up slightly (up 0.4 percent). However, with a drop in transactions volume, domestic virtual asset exchange service providers saw considerable drops in sales (down 41 percent) and operating profits (down 78 percent). The number of staff employed by domestic virtual asset exchange service providers stood at 2,021 individuals, a drop of 10 from the previous survey period. Among them, there were 213 anti-money laundering (AML) professionals, up by one from the previous survey period.
Despite a slight increase in the number of custody and digital wallet service users (up 13 or 2 percent), the total size of virtual assets in custody and digital wallet services dropped (down KRW76.7 billion or 25%) and these service providers saw a further drop in operating profits (down KRW9.4 billion or 101 percent).
* Please refer to the attached PDF for details.