A petition to scrap a 22% tax on crypto funding features in South Korea reached the 50,000-signature threshold required for the nation’s Finance and Financial Planning Committee to assessment objections to the brand new tax regime.
The 22% tax, set to take effect in January 2027imposes monetary and reporting “burdens” on buyers, whereas additionally limiting upward mobility for youthful people, who’re locked out of housing markets as a result of skyrocketing actual property costs, in response to the petition.
The petition now has greater than 52,000 signatures. Supply: South Korea Assembly
The petition additionally stated that taxing crypto features at 22%, whereas giving different asset courses preferential tax remedy, undermines South Korea’s share of the crypto market. In a translated assertion, the authors of the petition wrote:
“If taxation is enforced with a purpose to safe short-term tax revenues, it’s prone to result in larger losses in the long run, particularly, a contraction of business and an outflow of capital and expertise overseas.”
South Korea is a key crypto hub within the Asia-Pacific area, and in March 2025, about 32% of the nation’s inhabitants owned cryptocurrencies, in response to native information company Yonhap. Nevertheless, possession has declined to date this 12 months as crypto costs stay beneath strain.
Associated: South Korea plans July rules for tokenized securities
South Korea’s crypto market contracts as tighter controls are proposed
The entire worth of crypto held by South Koreans declined from about 121.8 trillion won ($83.3 billion) in January 2025 to about 60.6 trillion gained ($41.4 billion) in February 2026, in response to business information.
Day by day buying and selling volumes on the 5 largest crypto exchanges within the nation, which embrace Upbit, Bithumb, Coinone, Korbit and Gopax, additionally fell from $11.6 billion in December 2024 to only $3 billion in February.
Day by day buying and selling quantity for South Korea’s largest crypto exchanges. Supply: CoinGecko
Tighter Anti-Cash Laundering (AML) laws and Know Your Buyer controls in South Korea are additionally driving buyers away from the sector, critics of the insurance policies say.
In March, South Korea’s Monetary Companies Fee (FSC) and the Monetary Intelligence Unit (FIU) proposed that every one crypto transactions above 10 million gained ($6,630) despatched to or from international crypto wallets must be robotically flagged as suspicious.
Crypto business advocacy organizations within the nation have pushed back against the new rulesarguing that the reporting necessities would create an operational burden for exchanges.
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