April 17, 2024

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[THE INVESTOR] Korea’s cryptocurrency exchange operators reaped huge profits in 2017 on the back of the national frenzy over digital money, data showed on April 4.

The annual turnover of BTC Korea.com, which is in charge of local cryptocurrency exchange Bithumb, stood at 333.4 billion won (US$315.60 million) in 2017, up a sharp 77 times on-year from 4.3 billion won. Its net profit jumped from 2.5 billion won to 427.2 billion won over the past year, according to the report by Vidente.

The major source of income for BTC Korea is commissions earned from digital money, it noted.

Dunamu, which operates cryptocurrency exchange Upbit, logged 211.4 billion won in sales and 198.3 billion won in profit last year, which is considered huge given that Upbit began operations in October 2017, market analysts said.

Upbit is the No. 1 operator in Korea, with a market share of over 50 percent, followed by Bithumb, Korbit and Coinone.

Cryptocurrency has become a very popular investment tool starting in the second half of last year, with around 3 million people in Korea estimated to have bought and traded the virtual currency.

By Song Seung-hyun and newswires (ssh@heraldcorp.com)