South Korea's crypto economy grew 12.3% to $449.1 billion over the past year, with retail traders in the country accounting for nearly all of that expansion, according to new data. The broader East Asian crypto economy contracted modestly over the same period, making Korea the outlier in the region.
The growth wasn't spread evenly. AI tokens became the top thematic investment category by won-denominated trading volume by June, surpassing payment tokens like XRP. Worldcoin (WLD) alone drew $7.41 billion in Korean trading volume over the year — the highest of any AI token in the country.
Worldcoin leads a rotation that keeps spinning
Korean traders have a well-documented habit of rotating fast. The AI tokens that led in 2025 — including VIRTUAL and KAITO — have already been overtaken by WLD and Sahara AI (SAHARA). The numbers back that up. Sahara AI logged $3.2 billion in Korean volume, Virtuals Protocol did $2.7 billion, Bio Protocol $2 billion, and NEAR Protocol $1.7 billion.
The concentration in AI tokens wasn't a global phenomenon. AI tokens' share of won trading was 19.5 times their share of yen trading, and also dwarfed their share in euro, British pound, and Brazilian real trading. Chainalysis tied the trade to Korean retail traders' taste for high-risk, high-reward bets — similar to how their stock market trade is led by SK Hynix.
Grayscale flags a 54% September rally
AI crypto assets rose 54% in September, according to Grayscale, outperforming the wider market's 24% gain. Grayscale values the AI crypto sector at about $15 billion — the smallest of its six crypto sectors. But Zach Pandl, the firm's head of research, sees room for major winners within five years.
WLD has been the clearest beneficiary. The token climbed 44.28% over the past month to $0.57155, though it slipped 1.74% in the past day. It added 15% last week while most crypto assets slipped. Santiment did not tie that move to a specific catalyst.
For all the recent strength, the token remains about 95% below its $11.74 record from March 2024 — a reminder of how far the AI narrative still has to run to reclaim old highs.
Unlocks are shrinking, and a tax deadline looms
Supply pressure from Worldcoin's token unlocks is set to ease. The project said in April that daily WLD unlocks would fall 43% from July 24 to about 2.9 million tokens. That's a slow-moving tailwind, not a switch, but it removes some of the steady sell pressure that's capped rallies this year.
The bigger overhang is fiscal. South Korea plans a 22% tax on crypto gains starting January 2027, though lawmakers have delayed it before. With retail participation this concentrated in high-beta AI tokens, the tax's timing — and whether it holds — matters more than most policy items on the calendar.
For now, the question is whether the AI trade keeps broadening into names like SAHARA and BIO, or whether Korean retail's next rotation moves somewhere else entirely. The September performance gap suggests the sector still has momentum. The 2027 tax date is the next hard checkpoint.
