More money keeps leaving South Korea’s crypto ecosystem than coming back in, and the latest numbers show no sign of that changing anytime soon. According to Financial Supervisory Service(FSS) data obtained by lawmaker Lee Jong-wook and local news media report, the country’s crypto exchanges recorded a net stablecoin outflow of 560.3 billion won, about $367 million, in June alone.
The five platforms that handle nearly all local crypto trading, Upbit, Bithumb, Coinone, Korbit, and Gopax, sent 2.76 trillion won ($1.81 billion) in stablecoins to overseas exchanges during the month, while only 2.2 trillion won ($1.44 billion) came back through the same channels. June’s figure however builds on a trend that has now run uninterrupted since January 2025, when this particular FSS data series began tracking monthly flows, making 18 straight months without a single month of net inflows.
For context, June’s outflow came in higher than May’s 477.1 billion won gap but remained short of the all-time high recorded in January 2025, when net outflows hit 1.14 trillion won. Looking at the bigger picture, local reporting puts total outflows for the entire second quarter at close to $1.1 billion.
As per reports, overseas derivatives, tokenized real-world assets, DeFi platforms, and staking products are largely absent from the five domestic exchanges, pushing traders to route funds through stablecoins to access those markets elsewhere.
What’s notable is how this pattern has decoupled from another familiar trend, Korean investors buying foreign stocks. In the past, stablecoin outflows tended to run at roughly 20% the size of Koreans’ net purchases of overseas equities, a fairly predictable ratio.
Interest in foreign stocks has cooled, and net stock buying has even flipped negative in some months, yet stablecoin outflows have kept climbing regardless. The implication is that traders aren’t primarily using stablecoins to fund stock purchases abroad anymore but aare chasing crypto products that simply aren’t licensed for sale at home.
Meanwhile, a policy report issued Thursday urged authorities to put interim licensing guidance in place and begin phasing in stablecoin regulation now, rather than waiting for the more sweeping Digital Asset Basic Act to be finished. The act, still working its way through the legislative process, is meant to become South Korea’s first comprehensive rulebook for digital assets.
