"NTS coin seizure worth 7 billion won stolen?"…Turns out to be a few million won in a micro-cap token [Kim Ik-hwan’s Ministries Hands Up]

Apology over theft of 4 million coins seized by the National Tax Service

Confusion over stolen coins’ value…7 billion won vs a few million won

84% of supply concentrated in two wallets…‘distorted price discovery’

A mass sell-off would inevitably trigger a crash…“Only a few million won at most”

“We deeply apologize.”

On the 1st, a public holiday, the National Tax Service (NTS) issued an apology without prior notice. It came after 4 million units of crypto assets seized from a high-value delinquent taxpayer were leaked externally. The incident began with a press release distributed on the 26th of last month. The NTS said it had seized a “cold wallet” (offline wallet) where the taxpayer’s crypto assets were stored, but in the process the “mnemonic code,” a recovery passphrase required to restore the assets, was exposed as-is in a photo. Authorities believe a third party who saw it siphoned off the coins.

Controversy followed in markets and among experts over the stolen crypto assets’ true value. Some analyses put the value of the 4 million coins at 7 billion won, a figure calculated by simply multiplying the quantity by the asking price at a specific point in time. However, industry participants and experts broadly agreed that “the real value is around a few million won.”

According to the crypto industry on the day, the stolen assets were 4 million units of Freelitogeum (PRTG) tokens. PRTG’s total issuance is 10 million. Of that, 8.4 million (84%) is concentrated in just two wallets. The largest wallet holds 4.4 million (44%) and the second-largest holds 4 million (40%). With supply so heavily concentrated in two holders, normal price discovery is difficult. When trading is thin, there can be a large gap between the quoted price and the price at which one can actually sell.

PRTG is listed only on the overseas exchange MEXC. Trading volume is also extremely low. Last year, average daily volume was about 240,000 tokens—just 2.5% of total issuance. Transactions of $10,000 or more account for 75% of daily volume. Critics say the token’s price is set in a market structure where sporadic trading is punctuated by repeated large-value transactions.

Given the low volume, selling the stolen 4 million tokens into the market would inevitably cause the price to collapse. In a market without sufficient liquidity, a large sell order leads to a sharp price drop. Accordingly, the amount that could be recovered by liquidating these tokens is expected to be only a few million won.

Cho Jae-woo, a professor in the Division of Social Sciences at Hansung University (head of the Blockchain Research Institute), wrote on social media platform X (formerly Twitter) that “the average daily trading volume over the past 30 days is around $380,” adding that “if 4 million out of a total supply of 10 million are sold into the market, the shock would be large, and the amount that can realistically be converted into cash would be at most a few thousand dollars.” In addition, once these tokens are deposited to an exchange, the account would be frozen, making cash-out impossible.

Reporter Kim Ik-hwan lovepen@hankyung.com