South Korean lawmaker Park Soo-young has called for the government to withdraw its planned 22% tax on virtual asset gains before the levy takes effect on Jan. 1, 2027, arguing that the policy unfairly targets roughly 13 million crypto users while investment taxes on domestic stocks have been scrapped.

According to Digital Asset, the People Power Party lawmaker criticized the tax plan on his YouTube channel, “Park Soo-young’s Economy TV,” on Aug. 13, describing it as a punitive policy that could push more Korean capital toward overseas cryptocurrency markets.

“I hope this punitive tax plan that holds 13 million digital asset users hostage will be withdrawn immediately,” Park said.

The lawmaker compared the treatment of crypto investors with South Korea’s decision to abolish the financial investment income tax, which would have applied to investment income from financial products including stocks.

Park argued that removing the investment tax while retaining a separate levy on virtual assets amounts to telling investors they could face a “tax bomb” if they choose not to invest in the domestic stock market.

South Korea crypto tax faces renewed opposition

Under South Korea’s current Income Tax Act, profits from the transfer or lending of virtual assets will be classified as other income from Jan. 1, 2027. Investors will receive an annual deduction of 2.5 million won, with gains above that amount taxed at 20%.

Once the 2% local income tax is included, the effective rate reaches 22%.

The 2.5 million won deduction is the same basic deduction applied to capital gains from overseas stocks, while South Korea no longer plans to introduce the financial investment income tax that would have covered certain domestic financial investments.

The government has maintained that implementation will proceed next year. In May, Moon Kyung-ho, director of the Ministry of Economy and Finance’s income tax division, publicly confirmed that authorities were preparing to introduce the tax on schedule, as crypto.news previously reported.

The National Tax Service has also been preparing implementation guidance with South Korea’s five major crypto exchanges: Upbit operator Dunamu, Bithumb, Coinone, Korbit and Gopax. The guidance is expected in 2026, while the first full filing period would come in May 2028 for income earned during 2027.

Political opposition has continued despite those preparations. The People Power Party introduced legislation in March seeking to amend the Income Tax Act and abolish the crypto tax before it takes effect. The tax has already been delayed three times following years of disagreement over when and how digital asset gains should be taxed.

Originally introduced in 2020, the regime was scheduled to take effect earlier, but lawmakers repeatedly pushed back its implementation. The latest postponement moved the start date from 2025 to 2027.

Park warns capital could move overseas

Park also challenged the idea that taxing crypto could encourage investors to redirect their money into Korean equities.

“People will not invest in domestic stocks just because of this,” he said, adding that the policy could instead accelerate the movement of Korean wealth overseas.

To support his argument, Park cited data showing that roughly 124 trillion won flowed into overseas digital asset exchanges between January and September last year.

Capital moving from Korean platforms to foreign exchanges and private wallets has already drawn regulatory attention. Financial Services Commission data released in March showed that South Korean exchanges recorded 90 trillion won, or roughly $60 billion, of crypto outflows during the second half of 2025, up 14% from 78.9 trillion won in the first half. The regulator attributed part of the activity to cross-border arbitrage and similar trading, while overseas crypto outflows have remained under scrutiny.

South Korea has also moved to place more cross-border digital asset activity within its foreign-exchange framework. Amendments to the Foreign Exchange Transactions Act created a virtual asset transfer service category and require companies handling qualifying overseas crypto transfers to register with the finance minister. The cross-border transfer rules cover businesses moving virtual assets between South Korea and foreign countries through sales, purchases or exchanges.

Loss carryforwards become another tax dispute

Park separately criticized the treatment of losses under the planned system, arguing that the government intends to collect tax when investors make profits without providing comparable treatment when cryptocurrency prices fall.

“The losses suffered from a crypto crash cannot even be carried forward, yet they are already putting a spoon into the profits,” Park said.

His comments follow other objections focused on how the virtual asset tax compares with the treatment of other investments.

A public petition seeking complete repeal of the levy crossed the 50,000-signature threshold in May, automatically sending the proposal to a National Assembly committee for review. The petition argued that imposing a 22% tax on crypto profits while financial investment income from stocks and bonds remains exempt creates unequal treatment between asset classes. The tax repeal petition also raised concerns about investor protections and the treatment of a market where large price movements can rapidly alter gains and losses.

The disagreement has left the Jan. 1 deadline dependent on whether lawmakers change the Income Tax Act before implementation. The government has said it intends to proceed under the existing law, while no clear opposition to implementation has emerged from the ruling party.

The People Power Party continues to seek either the abolition or another postponement of the tax. Its March bill proposed removing the levy entirely, while Park’s latest comments called for the government to withdraw the planned tax before its scheduled 2027 implementation.

Public Bitcoin mining companies are shrinking their realized hashrate faster than the broader Bitcoin network, according to a BlocksBridge Consulting analysis reported in Miner Weekly. The data suggests some operators are redeploying electricity, facilities, and hardware toward data-center and high-performance computing (HPC) workloads rather than expanding crypto mining.

In the latest Miner Weekly update, BlocksBridge Consulting tracked a cohort of public Bitcoin miners and found realized hashrate declined from 368.3 EH/s in Q4 2025 to 319 EH/s in Q2 2026—down 13.4%. When excluding Bitdeer, the contraction was larger: realized hashrate fell 21.2% from 324.6 EH/s to 255.9 EH/s over the same six-month span. Bitdeer, by contrast, increased its realized hashrate by 44% to 63 EH/s.

Key takeaways

• Public miners’ realized hashrate dropped 13.4% between Q4 2025 and Q2 2026, while the Bitcoin network’s average hashrate fell 10.6%.
• Excluding Bitdeer, the public-miner cohort’s realized hashrate declined 21.2%, indicating a stronger pullback from many large listed operators.
• BlocksBridge’s numbers point to a shift in resource allocation—electricity and compute capacity moving toward data centers and HPC.
• Core Scientific and TeraWulf are increasingly earning from non-mining activities, with colocation and HPC leases outpacing mining revenue in recent quarters.
• The change is tied to the post-China mining boom unwinding and the parallel rise in AI infrastructure demand since 2022.

Public miners retreat faster than the network

The gap between industry-wide network trends and what’s happening at listed miners matters because realized hashrate at major operators often reflects strategic choices: whether to run machines at full tilt, pause less efficient operations, or repurpose capacity. While Bitcoin’s aggregate hashrate fell 10.6% over the period covered by BlocksBridge, the cohort of public miners declined more sharply, dropping 13.4% from 368.3 EH/s to 319 EH/s.

The divergence becomes more pronounced when looking at the composition of the cohort. Without Bitdeer, realized hashrate fell 21.2% from 324.6 EH/s to 255.9 EH/s. That larger contraction suggests that many public operators were not merely adjusting output with the broader cycle—they were reducing mining footprint relative to peers, or limiting the use of their most readily available power for Bitcoin blocks.

Bitdeer’s opposite direction reinforces that the trend isn’t uniform across all listed miners. BlocksBridge reported Bitdeer’s realized hashrate rose 44% to 63 EH/s during the same six-month window, implying that at least one major operator continued to treat mining expansion as economically viable while others pulled back.

Why the shift is happening: mining economics versus AI-driven demand

BlocksBridge framed the pullback as the unwinding of the expansion cycle that followed China’s 2021 Bitcoin mining ban. That regulatory shock triggered one of the steeper declines in network hashrate, followed by a recovery as miners relocated overseas and re-established operations in other jurisdictions.

In North America, the migration and subsequent capital deployment helped public miners expand. Many raised funds and acquired new power sites to increase mining capacity. But with one halving cycle later, the cost-and-demand equation has changed. According to BlocksBridge’s framing, weaker mining profitability combined with surging demand for AI infrastructure since 2022 has encouraged several public miners to redirect sites and power capacity away from pure Bitcoin mining.

That matters for investors because “miner earnings” are no longer tightly linked to one variable—Bitcoin network economics—at least not for the largest operators pursuing diversification. Instead, revenue becomes increasingly tied to how much capacity can be monetized through data-center services, colocation, and HPC leasing, where customer demand is driven by the AI build-out rather than solely by block rewards and transaction fees.

Non-mining revenue is moving to the center of the story

BlocksBridge’s report also points to another signal of this transition: the share of revenue coming from activities other than mining. In the examples highlighted, Core Scientific generated $136.7 million in colocation revenue in Q2, compared with $27.5 million from Bitcoin mining. TeraWulf, in turn, reported $31.9 million in HPC lease revenue versus $12.8 million from mining.

The implication is straightforward: for these operators, facilities and power are being monetized as compute infrastructure for third parties, not only as a way to mine BTC. Cointelegraph previously covered these financial dynamics in separate stories—such as Core Scientific’s revenue mix and TeraWulf’s data-center and HPC expansion—both of which are consistent with the broader BlocksBridge narrative about miners evolving into infrastructure providers.

For context within the cohort, the article notes that Riot Platforms and Bitdeer remained earlier in the transition, with Bitcoin mining still accounting for the majority of revenue in their latest reported quarter. That contrast is important: it helps explain why the overall public-miner hashrate decline isn’t identical to a universal exit from mining. Some companies are deepening the AI/data-center pivot, while others are still heavily dependent on mining cash flows.

What to watch next

The next phase likely hinges on whether the non-mining expansion continues to offset mining profitability pressure—and on how quickly remaining public miners decide to scale down operations in less efficient locations. Investors should watch both realized hashrate trends across cohorts and disclosures about revenue mix, because the sector’s direction appears to be determined as much by electricity monetization strategy as by Bitcoin’s underlying network changes.

Crypto remains a marginal payment option among euro area businesses even as other forms of digital payments gain ground, according to a new European Central Bank (ECB) report.

Just 0.2% of companies selling goods and services online accept crypto assets, the ECB said in its survey on companies’ cash use, published Thursday. Cash remains the most widely accepted payment method, with 92% of companies with physical points of sale accepting it.

The ECB surveyed 8,205 businesses across the 21 euro area countries, covering retail, restaurants and cafes, hotels, and arts, entertainment and recreation. Market research firm Ipsos conducted the telephone interviews from Feb. 23 to April 10.

The findings come as the ECB advances work on a digital euro, a central bank digital currency (CBDC) designed to complement cash and preserve the euro’s role.

Mobile payments are catching up

Mobile payments recorded the biggest shift among payment methods at physical locations, with acceptance jumping to 68% in 2026 from 36% in 2024.

The most commonly accepted mobile options include instant payments and digital wallets, such as Apple Pay and Google Pay.

Acceptance of various payment instruments, 2024 versus 2026. Source: ECB

Cash edged up to 92% from 90%, while physical card acceptance rose to 88% from 87%. Crypto assets and stablecoins showed virtually no momentum at physical points of sale, remaining below 1% acceptance in both 2024 and 2026. Acceptance of bank checks, meanwhile, fell to 27% from 36%.

Merchants cite consumer preference as top payment factor

Consumer preference was the biggest factor companies considered when choosing which payment methods to accept, cited by 26% of respondents, followed by security at 22% and ease of handling at 15%.

Businesses that reject cash most often cited weak customer demand, at 36%, and difficulties depositing or withdrawing it, at 35%, while 29% pointed to security risks.

Most important criteria when choosing to accept a means of payment, euro area, 2026. Source: ECB

The longer-term outlook varies sharply by country, with 51% of cash-accepting small and medium-sized enterprises in Cyprus saying they may stop accepting cash, compared with 23% in Greece and 18% in Bulgaria.

What counts as accepting crypto?

The ECB survey asked companies whether they accept crypto assets or stablecoins, citing Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH) and Tether’s USDt (USDT) as examples.

Some crypto payment services allow merchants to receive settlement in traditional currency even when customers pay with crypto. The survey does not specify whether merchants should count such payments as crypto acceptance.

Related: Western Union brings stablecoin remittances to Visa network with Stablecard

Cointelegraph asked the ECB whether converted crypto payments could therefore go unreported by merchants and whether regulatory uncertainty could affect companies’ answers. The ECB said it “prefer[s] not to speculate.”

Asked whether euro area merchants are permitted to accept crypto under European Union rules, the ECB said it does not set payment regulation and referred Cointelegraph to the European Commission and national lawmakers.

Magazine: El Salvador’s Bitcoin experiment turns 5: ‘It was for us, not them’

Plume and Shinhan Asset Management signed a memorandum of understanding on Aug. 14 to test a KRW denominated tokenized fund backed by one of Shinhan’s won ultra short term bond funds. 

The project is a proof of concept only. Shinhan said it will not involve actual issuance or distribution and will run through an isolated structure in a third jurisdiction that blocks Korean residents contractually and technically.

The companies plan to test the technical and compliance requirements needed to move the fund structure onchain. Those tests will include whitelist based transfer restrictions, know your customer checks, anti money laundering controls and onchain operating processes. 

Shinhan said the goal is to assess whether won denominated investment products could eventually reach offshore markets through tokenized infrastructure. The MOU records the companies’ intent to cooperate and does not commit them to a commercial issuance.

Plume and Shinhan will benchmark BlackRock’s BUIDL model

Shinhan said the project will benchmark BlackRock’s BUIDL tokenized fund model while using its own KRW ultra short term bond fund as the underlying asset. The comparison concerns the operating structure and compliance design. BlackRock has not been announced as a participant in the Shinhan and Plume project.

The PoC will simulate the issuance and distribution process without creating a live investment product. No token contract, issuance amount, investor allocation or commercial launch date has been disclosed. Shinhan CEO Lee Seok won said the trial is “fundamentally not intended for actual issuance or distribution.” Korean residents will also be excluded from the structure.

In addition, the offshore structure comes before South Korea’s new token securities framework takes effect. The Financial Services Commission said amendments to the Electronic Registration Act and Financial Investment Services and Capital Markets Act passed the National Assembly on Jan. 15. The rules are scheduled to take effect on Feb. 4, 2027.

The amendments will allow blockchain based distributed ledgers to serve as legally recognized securities registries while keeping tokenized securities subject to existing securities rules. The FSC has also formed a public private consultative body to work on issuance, circulation, technology, payment and settlement standards before implementation.

As crypto.news previously reported, South Korea is already building infrastructure for its new tokenized securities regime, including a system being developed for the Korea Securities Depository. The timing makes the Plume and Shinhan trial preparation rather than a domestic fund launch.

Plume brings U.S. transfer agent experience to the pilot

Plume’s U.S. regulatory infrastructure comes through Kimber Transfer Agency. An SEC filing shows Kimber submitted its Form TA 1 on Aug. 29, 2025, and the filing was accepted on Sept. 26. Plume has described Kimber as the transfer agent arm supporting official ownership records for tokenized securities.

As crypto.news reported, Plume joined DTCC’s tokenization working group alongside major financial firms in August. The group advises on operating standards around DTC’s tokenization service, which DTCC plans to launch in October 2026. Plume’s membership does not mean DTCC has selected the Plume blockchain or entered a production integration with it.

In related coverage, Plume’s Kimber unit became an SEC registered transfer agent, giving the company regulated recordkeeping capabilities in the U.S. That registration does not constitute SEC approval of the proposed Shinhan fund or any future Korean product.

What happens next

Shinhan and Plume have not announced a completion date for the PoC. The next milestones will be technical tests around whitelisting, KYC, AML and offshore operating controls, followed by any decision on whether to pursue a regulated issuance.

Any future domestic launch would also have to comply with South Korea’s securities framework after it takes effect in February 2027. Plume CEO Chris Yin described the cooperation as a first step toward connecting compliant KRW assets with global investors, but that remains a forward looking aim. No investor base or future distribution jurisdiction was announced. For now, the agreement remains an exploratory MOU with no live fund issuance, distribution or Korean investor access.

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