Yoon Ja-young is in charge of articles translated by a generative AI system and edited by The Korea Times. She is interested in improving the newspaper through AI.
Gangnam residents most active in coin investments
A representation of the virtual cryptocurrency Bitcoin / Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul
By Yoon Ja-young
Contrary to the popular belief that cryptocurrency investors are mostly young people without a stable income, residents of southern Seoul's affluent Gangnam District and people with stable government jobs are most interested in the virtual currency, data showed.
According to IGA Works, a mobile data analysis platform, around 7.6 million Koreans are estimated to be using apps related to cryptocurrency. They include apps for domestic virtual exchanges such as Upbit and Bithumb, overseas exchanges such as Binance and cryptocurrency community apps such as Coinness, as well as any other apps that coin investors are likely to use.
The 7.6 million figure is similar to the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) data submitted to Rep. Ahn Do-geol of the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea, which showed around 7.7 million of the accounts at Upbit and Bithumb are active.
According to IGA Works, around 340,000 people are using cryptocurrency-related apps in Gangnam District, which has a total of 562,000 residents. The number of similar app users totaled 220,000 in neighboring Seocho District, also known as an affluent area. That is more than half the district’s 412,000 residents.
The analysis showed that residents of the affluent districts, who have been mostly investing in real estate and stocks, are interested in cryptocurrency as well.
It is also notable that government workers are interested in cryptocurrency. Among the coin-related app users, government workers totaled 460,000. This means four out of 10 government workers are estimated to be investing in cryptocurrency. While they are not banned from such investments unless their job gives them access to cryptocurrency-related information or they can exercise influence due to their job, government officials in higher ranks are required to report their cryptocurrency investments.
The investors were mostly in their 40s, totaling 2.2 million, or 30s totaling 2 million. The number of investors in their 20s stood at 1.6 million.
The FSS also found that 34.5 percent of those holding over 1 billion won ($716,000) in cryptocurrency are in their 40s, though these large investments represent only 0.04 percent of all cryptocurrency accounts.