South Korean lawmakers traded almost $100 million of crypto in last three years

cointelegraphPublished on 2023-12-28Last updated on 2023-12-29

Over the last three years, members of the South Korean parliament, the National Assembly, have bought or sold almost $100 million in cryptocurrencies. The numbers come from a report published by the country’s Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission on Dec. 29.

The report follows a three-month investigation into virtual asset transaction records of all 298 sitting lawmakers between May 30, 2020, and May 31, 2023. The probe found that 18 out of 298 Korean lawmakers have records of virtual asset possession in the last three years, while all the traded volume during the period belongs to just 11 lawmakers.

According to the report, the exact trade volume of crypto in lawmakers’ accounts is estimated to be 125.6 billion won (US$97.6 million).

Bitcoin was the most popular cryptocurrency among Korean lawmakers. However, there were also 107 different crypto assets in their portfolios, the report says.

After a scandal in May 2023, when a member of the local Democratic Party came under fire for undeclared holdings of at least $4.5 million in Wemix (WEMIX) tokens, the South Korean government voted unanimously to oblige civil servants’ mandatory disclosure of crypto assets.

From 2024, almost 6,000 South Korean officials will be obliged to publicly disclose their crypto holdings through the Public Official Ethics System, while five major South Korean crypto exchanges — Upbit, Bithumb, Coinone, Korbit and Gopax — will launch separate “information provision systems,” simplifying the registration of information about crypto holdings.

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