Bitcoin liquidity is about to get crunched by a new Korean law that legally excludes 99% of buyers

On paper, South Korea has been one of the world’s loudest crypto markets for years. In practice, it has been a strangely narrow one.

If you were a regular person, you could trade on the big won exchanges. If you were a company with cash on the balance sheet, you mostly sat on your hands.

That is finally starting to change.

This week, Seoul Economic Daily reported that the Financial Services Commission shared a draft set of “listed company virtual asset trading guidelines” with an industry-government task force on Jan. 6. Regulators are aiming to publish a final version in January or February.

The practical headline is simple. Listed companies and registered professional investor corporations would be allowed to invest corporate funds into crypto again, after a ban that dates back to 2017.

The human version is messier, and more interesting.

If you run treasury for a Korean business, crypto has been something you could watch, research, and build around. But you could not really touch it at home without turning banking relationships into a compliance headache.

Korea’s regulators did not write “no” into one neat law for every corporate trade. Instead, they leaned on banks and “real name” account gatekeeping.

The outcome looked the same. Corporate money stayed out.

Now, the guidelines describe a controlled door opening.

What changes, and who gets to buy

The draft framework is built around three big constraints.

1. The buyers.
   The entities explicitly named are listed companies and professional investor corporations. That means firms that meet registration standards under Korea’s capital markets framework, not small businesses opening an exchange account on a whim. The number being discussed is roughly 3,500 corporates that could qualify.
2. The size.
   The reported limit is an annual “deposit,” or investment cap, of up to 5% of a company’s equity capital. That is conservative by design. It keeps the first wave from turning into a national corporate Bitcoin treasury sprint, and it gives regulators a hard stop if volatility spikes.
3. The menu. Eligible assets would be limited to coins in the top 20 by market cap, based on semiannual disclosures tied to Korea’s five major exchanges. The inclusion of dollar stablecoins like USDT and USDC is still being debated.

There are market structure guardrails, too.

The report says regulators want exchanges to adopt standards around order types, including expectations for split execution and limits on orders that exceed certain price ranges. The goal is to reduce sudden liquidity shocks once corporates arrive.

If you are looking for the moment this shifts from “policy intent” into something you can trade on, that Jan. 6 task force sharing matters.

It signals the FSC is past the vibes phase and into the “here are the controls, here is the scope” phase. The report also flags an expectation that corporate trading could be allowed within the year.

Why this matters for Bitcoin liquidity, even with the handcuffs on

Korean crypto trading has been retail-heavy for so long that the market developed habits around it. Think bursts of momentum, crowded alt rotations, and sharp sentiment flips.

The reporting argues corporate participation could help cool the casino vibe by bringing in risk teams, committees, and longer time horizons.

Whether that optimism plays out or not, the liquidity impact is real. Corporate flow behaves differently than individual flow.

A retail trader sells because they are bored, scared, euphoric, or overlevered.

A treasury desk sells because a policy limit is hit, a quarter closes, a board asks for cash, or risk control says the position is oversized.

Those drivers show up on charts in slower, chunkier ways. That tends to thicken order books in majors like BTC and ETH.

There is a useful illustration in the Korean coverage.

It points to Naver, reported to have about 27 trillion won in equity capital, and notes that a 5% allocation would be big enough to buy more than 10,000 BTC at local reference prices.

That is not a prediction. It is a scale check, and it underlines why even a “small” cap can still translate into meaningful spot demand if large firms participate.

The flip side is just as important.

If corporates are allowed in, corporates are allowed out.

Korea is effectively building a two-way ramp for balance sheets, and that can become a new source of supply during stress. The guardrails around asset eligibility and execution look designed to keep that supply from punching holes in thin books.

The bigger picture, Korea is trying to modernize its market plumbing

It is tempting to view this as a single crypto story. It fits better as part of a broader capital markets push.

South Korea has also announced plans to open its foreign exchange market to 24-hour trading starting in July 2026. The move is tied to a wider effort to improve market access and win an MSCI developed-market upgrade, according to Reuters.

The government is basically saying it wants global capital to move in and out of won assets with fewer frictions.

That macro goal sits comfortably next to a policy that makes domestic crypto markets deeper and more institution-ready.

It also explains why the crypto opening comes with so many constraints.

Korea wants more participation, and it wants it on Korea’s terms, inside a compliance perimeter regulators can defend.

The FSC has been laying groundwork for this approach for a while.

In a February 2025 release on corporate participation, the commission described setting up a task force with the FSS, the Korea Federation of Banks, and DAXA. It also laid out plans for internal control standards and guidelines for corporate entry, according to an FSC press release.

The Jan. 2026 draft looks like the continuation of that plan, with the investor universe moving from theory into operational rules.

What to watch next, because the fine print will decide the market impact

If you care about BTC liquidity, this story is less about a headline and more about the final scope.

Four details will tell you whether this becomes a steady bid, or a cautious pilot that markets will quickly stop talking about.

1. Which corporates count as eligible, and how strict the “professional investor” gate is in practice. If the list skews toward sophisticated treasury management, flows should be steadier. If it broadens fast, expect more uneven behavior.
2. How the top-20 universe is calculated and enforced. The reporting ties it to semiannual market cap disclosures across the five major exchanges, and the operational detail will matter, especially in fast-moving markets where rankings shift.
3. Stablecoin treatment. If USD stablecoins stay out, the market remains more domestically ring-fenced, and corporate participation will be more KRW-native. If they come in, you increase the number of ways corporates can manage liquidity and settlement, which tends to raise trading volume and tighten spreads.
4. Execution rules and banking rails. The report flags guardrails like split trading and controls on out-of-range orders, and the banking layer will decide whether this feels frictionless or bureaucratic.

Korea is not suddenly turning every chaebol into a Bitcoin whale.

It is doing something more Korean than that. It is creating a framework, putting a cap on it, limiting what can be bought, and tightening the rules of the venue at the same time.

For Bitcoin, the direction of travel still matters.

Corporate balance sheets represent the kind of spot flow that can change liquidity in a way retail excitement usually cannot. Korea’s market is large enough that even a carefully rationed opening can show up in global BTC microstructure, especially during Asia hours.

The ban kept corporate Korea on the sidelines for close to a decade.

The guidelines being finalized now suggest the sidelines are no longer the plan. The next question is how wide the door actually opens when the FSC publishes the final text.