Mirae Asset chairman says few people have made money from Bitcoin

Mirae Asset Group Chairman Park Hyeon-joo, who also serves as the group’s global strategist, voiced a negative view on Bitcoin investment during a meeting with DigitalX employees in Seoul today. Park said almost no one had made money from Bitcoin and described the damage as ruinous for many investors. Park added Park did not understand why people were doing it while even taking out loans, and stressed the same approach should not be used for stocks or any other asset. On DigitalX, Park said if the company turns profitable, it plans an additional capital increase in the first quarter of next year worth 200 billion won to 300 billion won ($149.8 million to $224.7 million), aimed at strategic investors. Depending on conditions, Park said the company may also offer a third-party allotment opportunity to customers doing business with DigitalX. Park said clients have 1,500 trillion won ($1.12 trillion) in assets under custody at Mirae Asset and those assets will be digitized. If Mirae Asset moves aggressively on capital increases and makes diverse global investments, Park said DigitalX could achieve profitability in 2027. Park also criticized past listing practices at virtual-asset exchanges, saying hundreds of altcoins listed only on South Korean exchanges were added without hesitation and, from Park’s perspective, amounted to fraud. Park said it could not be considered success for a company to make money by listing low-quality coins that leave 80% to 90% of customers with losses, and added that charging fees for such activity despite recognizing the problem was criminal behavior. On decentralized finance, Park said cross-border DeFi would be difficult, arguing that countries with monetary policy and currency sovereignty, including South Korea, would be unlikely to allow cross-border DeFi that weakens those powers. Park added a huge market could open for STOs by fractionalizing stakes in companies such as Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, and said DigitalX should evolve beyond conventional virtual-asset trading into an onchain finance platform spanning RWA and STO.