South Korean crypto tycoons see plummeting wealth on industry woes

[ad_1]

This story appears in the April/May 2023 issue of Forbes Asia. Subscribe to Forbes Asia

Song Chi-hyung (L) and Kim Hyoung-nyon (R).

Courtesy of Dunamu

This story is part of Forbes coverage of Koreas Richest 2023. See the full list here.

The crypto winter that set in last year hit South Korea’s wealthiest industries. Song Chi-hyung, co-founder and chairman of Dunamu, which operates Korea’s largest crypto exchange (by volume) Upbit, lost 74% of his fortune after the company’s value plummeted. He dropped 32 places to No. 41 with a net worth of $950 million, while Dunamu executive vice president Kim Hyoung-nyon dropped out of the list altogether. The Seoul-based company is now worth less than a quarter of its peak valuation of $17 billion in 2021, after Kakao Investment bought a 10.7% stake for about $437 million in December.

ss

Another representative is Park Kwan-ho, founder and chairman of game developer Wemade. Park joined the three comma club in 2021 as the Seongnam-based company rode the wave of blockchain gaming. Its shares have since shrunk by nearly half, with the company posting a net loss of 123.9 billion won ($93.4 million) last year after the crypto crash.

Falling fortunes highlight the country’s vulnerability to the volatile crypto market. According to the Financial Services Commission, around a quarter of South Koreans had registered accounts with crypto exchanges by June last year. South Korea’s crypto assets plunged nearly 60% year-over-year to 23 trillion won in the first six months of 2022, according to the regulator’s latest data, when the collapse of the project Terra stablecoin wiped out some $60 billion worth of crypto tokens. Further losses are expected following the collapse of the FTX crypto trading platform in November. According to data provider CoinGecko, South Korea was the largest user of the exchange by monthly unique visitors before FTX filed for bankruptcy.

[ad_2]