South Korea’s crypto economy reached $449.1 billion, ranking first in East Asia, while trading in artificial intelligence-related tokens led market growth.
South Korea’s crypto market exceeded $440 billion, maintaining its position as the largest market in East Asia. From July 2025 through June 2026, the country’s crypto economy totaled $449.1 billion, up 12.3% from the previous year. This was well ahead of Japan at $228.3 billion, Hong Kong at $192.2 billion, China at $176.3 billion and Taiwan at $140.4 billion over the same period.
Trading in artificial intelligence-related crypto assets was a particularly prominent driver of growth in the South Korean market. As of June this year, AI-themed tokens became the investment category with the largest share of won-denominated trading volume, surpassing Ripple, the leading existing payment-oriented asset. The won-denominated trading volume of AI tokens in South Korea was approximately 19.5 times Japan’s yen-denominated trading volume.
During the period, Worldcoin was the most actively traded AI-themed crypto asset in South Korea, with trading volume of $7.41 billion. It was followed by Sahara at $3.2 billion, Virtual at $2.7 billion, Biora at $2 billion and Near at $1.7 billion.
According to market analysis, South Korean retail investors switched traded assets within the AI ecosystem at a much faster pace and with greater intensity than investors in other national markets. Rather than remaining in a single asset for an extended period, liquidity moved nimbly toward assets associated with new technology themes and public interest, which was assessed as boosting activity across the market.