Key findings
- Eligible exchange users are not automatically the addressable audience for a specific product.
- Cash balances are stocks; trading turnover is a flow. Adding them would overstate purchasing power.
- Start with access conditions and a real user problem, then test reach and completed actions.
What 7.78 million does not tell us
Teams entering Korea often treat a national user count as their market size. The FSC’s first-half 2024 survey reported 7.78 million eligible exchange users and KRW 6.0 trillion in average daily trading. Neither figure identifies frequency of use, interest in a particular project or eligibility for an onchain product. Renaming the population in an official statistic as a product’s customer base is already an assumption. [1]
The useful question is who a team can reach by investing in Korean-language support. Exchange account holders and people willing to use a self-custodial service may overlap; they are not demonstrably identical. An acquisition plan should reflect that distinction before applying a conversion rate.
| Measure | H1 2024 release | What it describes | What it does not describe |
|---|---|---|---|
| Eligible users | 7.78 million | Trading access at reporting providers | Active customers of a product |
| Won deposits | KRW 5.0 trillion | Cash balances at the observation date | Future investment budgets |
| Average daily trading | KRW 6.0 trillion | Gross trading activity | Net new capital inflows |
| Holdings below KRW 1 million | 5.67 million users | One asset-balance band | Total wealth or income |
FSC release dated 31 October 2024. User and balance measures refer to 30 June; trading is a first-half daily average. These are provider-submitted survey data. [1]
Combining stocks and flows exaggerates demand
KRW 5 trillion in deposits and KRW 6 trillion in daily turnover can coexist because the same capital can trade repeatedly. Annualizing turnover scales activity, not purchasing power. Counting purchases, sales and transfers between projects as distinct new demand inflates the addressable market.
Small balances do not make a user irrelevant. Payments, games and information services can combine limited holdings with frequent use. Capital, time and trust requirements matter more than a balance alone. A trading product and a community tool should reach different conclusions from the same aggregate statistics.
Use a range, then investigate what drives it
Consider a hypothetical population of 100,000. If 60% meet access conditions, 20–40% of those have the problem, 30% are reachable and 5–10% of those take the action, the result is 180–720 people. This is not an estimate of Korea’s market; it shows which assumptions can change a result fourfold.
Conversion may not be the first variable to investigate. If problem fit is unknown, interviews may offer more information than copy testing. If eligibility is unresolved, product-access review comes first. Research should prioritize the next uncertainty, not make an unsupported estimate look precise.
| Product | Initial denominator | Evidence from a small test |
|---|---|---|
| Trading tool | Users of the relevant venue and workflow | Repeat use and actual task time |
| Consumer service | Eligible people experiencing the problem | Completed tasks after wallet connection |
| Institutional solution | Qualified organizations and departments | Accountable reviewer and budget/security process |
CBK analysis. This is an analytical framework, not observed customer performance or a market benchmark.
Connect aggregate assumptions to interviews
For a wallet-based service, recruit people who recently completed the task, people who abandoned it and people who do not need it. Interviewing only existing community members selects for interest and ability. Ask who is missing before celebrating the sample size.
Recent behavior is more informative than an intention to use a future product. Record the last task, its frequency, costs and failure points, then test whether the proposed product reduces them. Do not multiply a convenience sample’s problem rate by national user counts. Keep recruitment channels separate and leave unobserved populations explicitly unknown.
| Hypothesis | Potentially disconfirming observation |
|---|---|
| Korean explanations are the bottleneck | Better explanations do not change task completion |
| Preparing gas is the bottleneck | Sponsorship does not reduce abandonment before signing |
| Product need is widespread | Few participants recently used an alternative |
CBK analysis. This is an analytical framework, not observed customer performance or a market benchmark.
The release history is part of the data
A subsequent second-half 2024 release restated first-half comparison values. Connecting numbers from different releases can mix revisions with market changes. Use comparison columns within one release or maintain an explicit revision history. [2]
A market brief should state who compiled a number, what it counts and when it was observed. An external presentation may use one headline figure; an internal budget model should retain these distinctions. Both optimistic and pessimistic narratives about Korea need to pass the same test.
Scope & limitations
Public aggregates cannot fully identify duplicate accounts, overseas activity or onchain behavior. January 2025 is the retrospective starting period; the May 2025 release is used to explain later comparisons and revisions. All illustrative calculations are hypothetical.
CryptoBridge Korea analysis based on public materials. Source facts are distinguished from interpretation and hypothetical calculations. References to organizations or projects do not imply their sponsorship or review of this paper.
Sources & scope
- FSC / KoFIU, H1 2024 Virtual Asset Service Provider Survey ↗H1 2024 and end-June balances. Provider-submitted data, not nationally approved statistics.
- FSC / KoFIU, H2 2024 Virtual Asset Service Provider Survey ↗H2 2024 and end-December balances. Distinguish original releases from later revisions.