Almost a third (31%) of South Korea’s workers have invested in bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.
According to a recent survey by South Korean job portal Saramin, respondents had invested an average of 5.66 million won (~S$7,000) in virtual currencies.
The survey – which involved almost 1,000 South Korean workers, most of whom were in their 20s to30s – also found that more than eight of out 10 of these investors had made money off of trading bitcoin.
More than half of respondents (54%) felt that cryptocurrency trading was “the fastest way to earn high profits”.
With South Korea’s graduates struggling to find jobs in a bleak economic landscape, many have turned to virtual currencies as an alternative pathway to assure their futures.
The country is now one of the hottest markets for cryptocurrencies, ranking third behind the US and Japan. It is also home to Bithumb, one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency trading exchange.
Bitcoin trading has become so ubiquitous in South Korea that the phrase “bitcoin zombie” is now commonly used to refer to people who constantly check the token’s price through day and night, whether at work or at play.
The cryptocurrency investment frenzy has become chaotic enough for even the country’s prime minister, Lee Nak-yeon, to weigh in. Last year, he warned that it could “lead to serious distortion or social pathological phenomena, if left unaddressed”.
The South Korean government recently implemented restrictions and measures to curb the intensity of speculative investments into bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies — leading more than 200,000 people signed a petition protesting these measures.
