Korea Stock Exchange Executive Calls For More Legislation as Crypto Volume Catches up to Equities Volume

The CEO of Korea’s stock exchange, Sohn Byung-doo, says more rules are needed to institutionalize crypto.

article-image
share

key takeaways

  • The CEO of Korea’s stock exchange, the KRX, has said that it’s time to embrace virtual assets and called for proper regulation to help institutionalize the asset class
  • He also revealed that trading volume for crypto might soon catch up to equities in the country

Sohn Byung-doo, a former regulator and now CEO of Korea Exchange, the operator of the country’s sole stock exchange, has called for a comprehensive set of regulations for cryptocurrency. He said that it’s time to “embrace digital assets” as any other component of capital markets. 

“The virtual asset market is no different from the capital market in that it must support investor protection and transaction stability,” Sohn said during a speech at the 2021 Global ETP Conference.

“Since virtual assets have become ‘major’ investment assets, it is time to prepare an institutional framework.”

Sohn believes that Korea’s regulatory patchwork, which categorizes digital assets as something similar to intellectual property or patents — intangible assets, in accountant speak — isn’t conducive to domestic development of the sector. 

Within Korea, the government is set to implement a steep capital gains tax on capital gains from digital assets next year. In addition, in order to push for higher KYC/AML compliance, local exchanges will soon be required to partner with legacy banks. 

In turn, this has driven many traders offshore, as they don’t feel confident with the Korean regulatory regime. 

“Now is the time for exchanges to compete directly with overseas exchanges,” he said, saying that the world is now in a “global one market era” which requires competition between regulators. 

Sohn said that there are an estimated five million onshore digital assets traders in Korea, with more offshore. 

And these millions of traders are able to push nearly $12 billion in daily volume. For comparison, Korea’s composite index, the KOSPI, has a daily volume of $16.1 billion.

In some ways, Korea finds itself in a similar situation to Indonesia, where there are more digital asset traders than stock traders. Indonesia’s daily turnover of trading is around $900 million a day while its cryptoasset volume is about $166 million, showing that digital assets trading in-country is the domain of small, retail investors.
Unlike in Korea, Indonesia’s digital asset trading industry is facing headwinds from the country’s national religious council, which, in mid-November, said that Muslims are forbidden to trade crypto.


Get the day’s top crypto news and insights delivered to your inbox every evening. Subscribe to Blockworks’ free newsletter now.


Tags

Upcoming Events

Javits Center North | 445 11th Ave

Tues - Thurs, March 18 - 20, 2025

Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) will feature conversations between the builders, allocators, and legislators who will shape the trajectory of the digital asset ecosystem in the US and abroad.

Brooklyn, NY

TUES - THURS, JUNE 24 - 26, 2025

Permissionless IV serves as the definitive gathering for crypto’s technical founders, developers, and builders to come together and create the future.If you’re ready to shape the future of crypto, Permissionless IV is where it happens.

recent research

Research Report Templates (11).png

Research

Under current market conditions, stablecoins are paying compelling risk premiums multiples higher than the risk-free rate. Elevated premiums present a highly positive context for continued growth in the aggregate stablecoin supply and new inflows coming into the market to capture this elevated carry. Onchain money markets stand as primary beneficiaries of these market conditions and a forward outlook of a growing stablecoin supply. Similarly, Pendle’s PTs across a number of assets can provide attractive instruments to hedge variance and lock in a compelling fixed yield.

article-image

Sponsored

A next-gen blockchain offering 10,000 TPS, instant finality, and unparalleled developer incentives

article-image

BiT argues that Coinbase had ulterior motives to delist wBTC

article-image

Bitwise signaled its plans to list a solana ETF in the US less than a month ago

article-image

In the meantime, Trump will name either Commissioner Hester Peirce or Mark Uyeda as acting chair

article-image

Trump’s latest industry rendezvous featured a conversation with Crypto.com CEO Kris Marszalek

article-image

Unlike other BTC-pegged solutions, sBTC stays liquid — you don’t need to stake or lock it up to earn rewards