Petition to abolish crypto tax in South Korea gathers 50,000 signatures
A petition against the introduction of a 22% tax on profits from cryptocurrency investments in South Korea has gathered over 50,000 signatures. This figure is the minimum threshold required for the country's Finance and Planning Committee to review objections to the new tax regime. This is reported by Cointelegraph.com .
This tax, expected to take effect in January 2027, will increase the financial and reporting burden on investors, according to the petition's authors. It is also noted that at a time when real estate prices have soared, the crypto market remains one of the few wealth-building opportunities for the younger generation. Currently, more than 52,000 people have supported the petition.
The petition notes that while preferential tax regimes are applied to other types of assets, taxing Bitcoin and other digital assets at 22% will harm South Korea's share of the global crypto market. According to Yonhap agency, 32% of the population owned cryptocurrency in March 2025, but this figure is declining amid falling prices.
According to industry data, the total value of crypto assets held by Koreans fell from 121.8 trillion KRW in January 2025 to 60.6 trillion KRW by February 2026. Daily trading volumes on major exchanges such as Upbit, Bithumb, and Coinone have also shrunk from $11.6 billion to $3 billion.
Furthermore, strict AML and KYC rules proposed by South Korean financial regulators (FSC and FIU) are also driving investors away from the market. In particular, the requirement to automatically flag foreign transactions exceeding 10 million KRW as suspicious is being heavily criticized by the crypto community.
