In 7 years, it jumped 1000 times... Who is the '120 billion won coin-rich' local councilor?

The value of cryptocurrency held by Hongsoo Kim, a councilor of Gangneung City, has increased more than 1000 times compared to when it was purchased 7 years ago, reaching 12.9 billion won.

According to the '2025 Regular Property Change Report' released on the 2nd by the Public Officials Ethics System, Councilor Kim held the most cryptocurrency (12.93677 billion won) among high-ranking officials who reported their assets. This is about 1.3 billion won more than the amount reported last year (11.62576 billion won).

Previously, in 2018, Councilor Kim was known to have purchased 195,555 OES coins and 240,000 Donacle coins for about 10 million won. He bought approximately 430,000 coins at a price of about 23 won each. He kept the coins without selling them for 7 years.

As a result, the value of Councilor Kim's cryptocurrency holdings increased more than 1000 times over 7 years to 12.9 billion won. The value of the cryptocurrency, which was 23 won per coin, soared to 29,000 won.

At the time of the property report, Councilor Kim said, "The amount of virtual assets held is the same as before, but the price has fluctuated due to changes in coin prices and exchange rates."

This is reported to be a very rare case. In the case of Bitcoin (BTC), which ranks first in market capitalization, it has increased about 12 times since 2018, and Ethereum (ETH) has only increased about 4.5 times.

Councilor Kim's cryptocurrency holdings of 12.9 billion won account for 96% of his total reported assets (13.43846 billion won). Even when combining the land (155.95 million won), buildings (252.75 million won), and deposits (165.43 million won) reported by Councilor Kim, it does not reach 5% of the cryptocurrency holdings.

However, the cryptocurrency invested by Councilor Kim is not traded on domestic centralized exchanges (CEX) such as Upbit and Bithumb. In the case of OES coins, trading is possible on the decentralized exchange (DEX) Uniswap, but liquidity is extremely low, making smooth trading difficult.

In the case of Donacle coins, no transaction history could be found on other DEXs such as Uniswap and Sushiswap. Therefore, it is speculated that Councilor Kim also had difficulty cashing out the cryptocurrency and was likely holding it as a physical asset.

Reporter Gojung Sam, Hankyung.com jsk@hankyung.com