Crypto users between 30 and 39 years old are the demographic with the most deposits on major exchanges in South Korea. According to a Sunday report from the Yonhap News Agency, South Korean residents in their thirties deposited roughly 2.2 trillion Korean won — $1.9 billion at the time of publication — to crypto exchanges Upbit, Bithumb, Coinone and Korbit by the end of the second quarter of 2021. South Korean teenagers have the fewest deposits at $3.4 million, but this was still an increase of more than 400% compared with the $824,000 that they deposited in Q1 2021. “All …

Shinhan Bank, the oldest banking institution in South Korea, continues its efforts to introduce digital-asset custody services with a new investment. According to a Thursday report by news agency Yonhap, Shinhan Bank has invested in Korea Digital Asset Trust, or KDAC, an industry consortium of businesses that provide digital-asset custody. The initiative was launched by Korbit in collaboration with blockchain startup Blocko and digital-asset research company Fair Square Lab. With the new investment, Shinhan Bank moves closer to offering its own cryptocurrency custody business. In August 2020, Shinhan Bank announced its plans to introduce crypto custody alongside another major South …

The hacker that breached the Ethereum.org forum is allegedly selling the databases for the three most-popular crypto hard wallets — Ledger, Trezor, and KeepKey. The three databases contain the name, address, phone number, and email for more than 80,000 users combined, however, they do not contain passwords for the accounts. The hacker has also recently listed the SQL database for online investment platform, BnkToTheFuture. Ledger and Trezor databases reportedly compromised On May 24, cyber crime monitoring website, Under the Breach, spotted the hacker’s new listings for the databases of the top hardware wallet providers. The hacker claims to be in …

The shutdown of Coinnest on April 18, one of the major crypto exchanges in South Korea, showcased the intense brutality of the 16-month bear market, which came crashing down as soon as bitcoin achieved an all-time high at a price of $20,000. While not many major crypto exchanges have closed their operations in the past year, most exchanges — with the exception of some platforms considered to have real daily volumes by Bitwise Asset Management — have struggled to maintain a stable inflow of revenue. The bear market was particularly difficult for small exchanges that are known to strategically inflate …

Two major cryptocurrency exchanges could soon have Walt Disney Corp. as their owner if a $13 billion equity deal goes through, South Korean English-language daily news outlet The Korea Herald reported on April 17. Citing a banking industry source speaking to another publication, JoongAng Ilbo, The Korea Herald revealed the chairman of online gaming giant NXC Corporation, Jung-ju Kim, plans to sell his 98.6% stake in the company. NXC owns 47% of Nexon, South Korea’s largest game developer, which in turn has stakes in South Korean exchange Korbit and European platform Bitstamp through a Belgian subsidiary. According to the source, …

On October 29, the cryptocurrency exchange, Bitstamp, was acquired by Belgium-based investment firm NXMH, which in turn, is owned by South Korean media conglomerate NXC Corp. The Luxembourg-registered exchange is now controlled by the same company that bought the majority stake in the South Korean crypto exchange, Korbit, last year, while its CEO remains in office to continue with Bitstamp’s “global expansion.” Brief history of Bitstamp, Europe’s oldest and most legally compliant crypto exchange Bitstamp was launched in August 2011 by Nejc Kodrič and Damijan Merlak in their native Slovenia. As Kodrič recalled in an interview, their business started out …

The crypto market and blockchain sector of South Korea, the third-largest digital asset exchange market in the world behind the United States and Japan, have some of the most robust systems and infrastructure in place to protect investors and facilitate the growing demand for cryptocurrencies. The strong infrastructure of the country’s cryptocurrency market is primarily attributable to the involvement of major multi-billion dollar conglomerates and commercial banks that have assisted the growth of local crypto-related businesses over the past two years. In late 2017, as the valuation of the crypto market achieved an all-time high of nearly $900 billion, interest …