South Korea stablecoin outflows hit $10.4B, rivaling the country’s overseas stock investments

South Korea has a stablecoin problem, and the numbers are hard to ignore. Over 18 months, from January 2025 through June 2026, net stablecoin outflows from the country’s five major crypto exchanges reached $10.4 billion, or roughly ₩14.92 trillion. That figure now rivals the country’s total overseas stock investment over the same period, which is a comparison that tends to get policymakers’ attention fast. The data comes from South Korea’s Financial Supervisory Service, the country’s top financial regulator. It covers activity across Upbit, Bithumb, Coinone, Korbit, and Gopax, the five exchanges that dominate domestic crypto trading. The pattern is consistent: Korean won gets converted into dollar-pegged stablecoins, and those stablecoins get moved offshore. Where the money is going and why Korean retail investors want access to higher leverage and financial products that domestic exchanges either don’t offer or aren’t permitted to offer under local rules. Stablecoins are the bridge. Convert won to USDT or USDC, move it to an offshore platform, and suddenly you have access to a much wider menu of risk. In June 2026 alone, the outflow hit ₩560.3 billion, which works out to roughly $...