South Korea Ranks Last on Openness Despite Being a Top Crypto Market

South Korea has one of the deepest retail crypto markets on earth — and one of the hardest places to build a crypto business in. A new 15-country competitiveness index ranks it 12th overall and dead last on cross-border openness.

Demand was never the problem

Korea lands sixth of the 15 for market demand, scored across 17 factors covering volume, ownership, talent, licensing and cross-border access. That gap is deliberate: a decade of containment-first policy kept foreign firms out while domestic retail kept trading hard. When Upbit launched in 2017 it listed more than 100 altcoins priced straight in won, pulling in traders who otherwise had to fight offshore exchanges for access.

The stablecoin bill that keeps slipping

The live fight is over won-denominated stablecoins, a campaign promise from President Lee Jae Myung. The Digital Asset Basic Act was meant to hit the National Assembly in the first quarter, and it is still parked on two questions. One is a rule requiring banks or banking consortia to hold at least 50% plus one share of any issuer. The other caps controlling shareholder stakes in an exchange at 20%.

A revised version would let a tech firm be the largest single shareholder as long as banks keep overall majority control, and would require issuers to hold at least 5 billion won, roughly $3.7 million, in paid-in capital. The central bank wants a 51% bank-led rule, citing monetary sovereignty and run risk. The financial regulator resisted, arguing the bar suppresses fintech participation and noting that most licensed e-money token issuers in Europe are not banks.

Banks are already testing

• Shinhan, KB Kookmin, Hana and Woori have all begun preparations.
• Woori Bank ran a test where a Coupang Eats order was paid with a won stablecoin and settled with the merchant in real time.
• Kakao Pay completed a proof of concept for a digital asset wallet.

Separately, Korea passed coordinated amendments to its Capital Markets Act and Electronic Securities Act in January 2026, effective in early 2027, giving tokenised securities a legal footing.

Why this matters if you trade Korea

The demand is real and the doors stay half shut, with the debate openly about whether dollar-backed stablecoins erode the won's role. Watch the issuer-eligibility fight instead of the price charts — whoever wins it decides whether the next won-pegged token is a bank product or an open one.