9 Korean Crypto Influencers: Who To Follow
- Arthur S.
- Jul 14
- 8 min read
Updated: 3 days ago
South Korea is one of the most crypto-saturated countries on earth. By early 2025, reports put the number of crypto investors above 16 million — roughly a third of the population — and a government survey covering the second half of 2025 counted more than 11 million exchange accounts.
But here’s the thing I keep having to explain to overseas clients: in Korea, hard, direct crypto promotion doesn’t land — it actively backfires. Years of scams, gambling-style blow-ups, and ugly headline cases have left audiences instinctively wary of anyone who shows up shouting “buy this coin.” Overt shilling reads as a warning sign here, not an invitation. A foreign project that walks in with a loud, coin-first campaign tends to get the cold shoulder.
What does work is education. Crypto folded into a broader, credible conversation about business, investing, careers, and technology, earning trust where a direct ad never could. A startup-founder interview that happens to feature a Web3 company. A professional investment show that treats digital assets as just another asset class. A knowledge channel that invites a Bitcoin scholar for a calm, hour-long talk.
YouTube is still the dominant stage, and long-form, podcast-style content does most of the heavy lifting. So the channels below aren’t coin-pumping accounts. They’re business, investing, and knowledge platforms — the places where Korean audiences are actually willing to hear about crypto.
9 Korean Crypto Influencers To Follow
1. Wisdom of Bitcoin — 오태민의 지혜의 족보
Subscribers: 208,000
If you want proof that the education-first approach is what works in Korea, start here. This is the rare channel built entirely around Bitcoin — and it succeeds precisely because it never behaves like a pump. It’s run by Oh Tae-min, who has researched and written about Bitcoin since 2014 and holds adjunct professor posts (Konkuk and Hanyang universities), where he teaches what he frames almost as the philosophy of money.
The whole posture is “let’s understand this properly” — long-form, thoughtful, more interested in why Bitcoin matters than what it’ll do this week. That tone is exactly why a Korean audience trusts it. For a project with a genuine thesis rather than a quick token story, this is the model of credibility to study, and Oh is also a frequent guest on bigger business and knowledge shows, which extends his reach well beyond the channel.
2. 투자360 (heraldinvest)
Subscribers: 9,470
Investment 360 is the YouTube channel of Herald, one of Korea’s established media companies, and it’s a clean example of how crypto reaches mainstream investors here: as one slice of a serious, professional asset-strategy conversation. The channel covers stocks, pensions and crypto side by side, with recurring segments like “Money Up” (market strategy) and “Corporate Unboxing” (analysing companies through their financial statements).
Notably, its own keywords list stablecoins and crypto right alongside Korean and US equities — digital assets are simply part of the 360-degree picture. For a brand, the appeal is the institutional credibility a media outlet carries. A mention or explainer here lands as financial journalism, not as a paid coin plug, and that distinction is everything in this market.
3. EO Korea
Subscribers: 763,000
EO is the country’s standout startup and entrepreneurship media brand — think of it as Korea’s answer to TechCrunch in video form. It built its name on founder interviews, beginning with the “RealValley” series profiling Koreans working at Silicon Valley companies, and has grown into a full media operation with founder education programmes and global channels.
Crypto enters EO the way it should in this market: through the builder. When a Web3, blockchain or fintech founder sits down to tell their company story, the technology gets a thoughtful, human airing — ambition, product, hard lessons — rather than a price chart. For a serious crypto company with an actual narrative, this is one of the most credible doors in Korea, because the audience is founders, operators and investors who respect substance.
4. 오늘도 미국 주식 (US Stocks Today)
Subscribers: 44,900
This one is all about tone, and the tone is the lesson. The host describes himself as an optimist who shares investment ideas drawn from companies’ hidden stories and the relationships behind them, with one stated goal: storytelling easy enough that “even our parents can comfortably follow along.” It’s US-stock-focused, calm and narrative-led, and it carries the standard not-investment-advice disclaimer.
Why include a stocks channel in a crypto list? Because in Korea the gateway to digital assets increasingly runs through this kind of accessible, trust-first investing content — crypto-exposed companies, the macro story, the “why” behind a trend. A brand that fits this channel isn’t buying a coin shout-out; it’s borrowing a storyteller’s ability to make something feel understandable and safe to the cautious, everyday investor.
5. 미키피디아 (MickeyPedia)
Subscribers: 359,000
MickeyPedia is the channel of Mickey Kim (Kim Hyun-yu), a former Google executive who spent over fifteen years leading the company’s Asia-Pacific hardware business before leaving in 2023 to run his own ventures and invest as an angel. The content sits at the intersection of career, industry outlook, money management and investing — essentially, an insider explaining how the tech and business world actually works.
That background is the value. When crypto, Web3 or a tech-industry shift comes up here, it arrives wrapped in genuine operator and investor credibility, aimed at ambitious professionals thinking about their careers and their portfolios. It’s the kind of measured, experience-led voice that makes a Korean white-collar audience comfortable engaging with digital assets as a serious topic rather than a gamble.
6. 허성범 Horang
Subscribers: 367,000
Heo Seong-beom — better known by his handle Horang — is a KAIST AI researcher turned broadcaster and creator who broke through on the survival show College War and has since become a go-to face for explaining technology to a general audience. His tagline sums up the appeal: “I’ll do the thinking; you just lend me your eyes.”
His lane is AI and future technology, and that’s precisely where crypto and blockchain land naturally — as part of the bigger “where is technology taking us” conversation, explained by someone with real technical authority and a young, engaged following.
For a project positioned around innovation rather than quick gains, a credible tech explainer like this reaches an audience that’s curious about the future and primed to take the subject seriously.
7. 지식인사이드 (Knowledge Inside)
Subscribers: 3.90 million
Knowledge Inside is one of the heavyweights of the list — a roughly three-million-subscriber knowledge channel (run by Awesome Entertainment) whose whole format is bringing in experts for in-depth, sit-down conversations across economics, investing, science and beyond. Google Korea has named it a top-3 creator three years running. Its interview series regularly runs close to half an hour per episode, which tells you everything about the audience: they’re here to learn, not to be sold to.
This is the mainstream-credibility megaphone. When a Bitcoin scholar or crypto economist (Oh Tae-min among them) appears here for a calm, substantive talk, the topic gets normalised for a huge general audience in the most trust-friendly format Korea has. If you want crypto to feel legitimate to ordinary Koreans rather than fringe or risky, this kind of expert-interview platform is exactly where that shift happens.
8. 슈카월드 (Syuka World)
Subscribers: 3.71 Million
Syuka World is, plainly, one of the biggest economy and current-affairs channels in the entire country. It’s run by Jeon Seok-jae, a former bond prop trader and fund manager who spent more than a decade in Korean finance before turning the whole thing into wildly watchable, witty long-form commentary on economics, markets and whatever else catches his eye. He has even served as a financial-education ambassador for the Financial Supervisory Service — about as mainstream a stamp of credibility as this space gets.
Crypto isn’t the channel’s focus, but it surfaces naturally whenever it’s driving the macro story; he’s long been one of the voices Korean media reach for during the big Bitcoin moments. That’s exactly why he matters for the argument of this piece: when a trusted, journalism-minded explainer with this much reach touches a topic, it gets contextualised and legitimised for a mass audience in a way no ad ever could. He’s also famously cautious and compliance-aware, precisely because his words move markets.
9. 머니인사이드 (Money Inside)
Subscribers: 2.11 Millions
Money Inside is a heavyweight economy channel from Awesome Entertainment — the same studio behind Knowledge Inside — and it runs on the same trust-first formula: bring on credible economists and analysts for substantive, sit-down conversations about the macro picture, markets and money. Its channel description makes the positioning explicit: it never does “stock recommendations” or “real-estate consulting,” and it openly warns viewers about impersonator scams using its name.
That stance is the whole reason it belongs here. Crypto shows up as one thread in a serious macro discussion — rates, currencies, global markets, digital assets — delivered by guests with real credentials. For a brand, it’s the familiar playbook of this list: you’re not buying a coin plug, you’re earning a place in a conversation that a cautious, knowledge-hungry audience already trusts.
CONCLUSION
Line these up and the real lesson of the Korean market comes into focus. It’s not about finding the loudest crypto channel — it’s about understanding why the loud approach fails here in the first place. A few things stand out:
Direct crypto promotion is culturally rejected. After years of scams and high-profile fraud cases, overt “buy this coin” messaging triggers distrust, not interest.
Education through credible, business-adjacent channels is what audiences accept — investing shows, startup media, career and tech explainers, expert-interview platforms.
Context does the persuading. Crypto lands when it sits inside a founder’s story, an asset-strategy segment, or a scholar’s talk — not when it stands alone as a pitch.
Long-form, podcast-style YouTube is the format. The calm, in-depth conversation is where trust gets built in Korea, not the 30-second hype clip.
If there’s one takeaway for any brand or project eyeing this market, it’s this: in Korea, you don’t earn crypto interest by promoting crypto. You earn it by being genuinely useful — by educating, contextualising, and showing up in the credible business and knowledge spaces people already trust. Get that order right, and a notoriously skeptical audience opens up faster than you’d expect.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Why doesn’t direct crypto promotion work in Korea?
After years of scams and high-profile fraud cases, Korean audiences instinctively distrust anyone shouting “buy this coin.” Overt shilling reads as a warning sign, not an invitation. Education-first content through credible channels is what actually lands.
What platform should crypto brands prioritize in Korea?
YouTube — and specifically long-form, podcast-style content. The calm, in-depth conversation is where trust gets built in Korea, not the 30-second hype clip.
Which channel on the list has the biggest reach?
Knowledge Inside (지식인사이드), at around 3.9 million subscribers. It’s an expert-interview platform where crypto scholars appear alongside economists and scientists — the most trust-friendly format Korea has.
Is there a channel dedicated purely to Bitcoin?
Yes — Wisdom of Bitcoin, run by Oh Tae-min, who has researched Bitcoin since 2014 and teaches at university level. It works precisely because it never behaves like a pump.
How should a crypto brand actually use these channels?
Show up inside credible contexts: a founder interview on EO Korea, an asset-strategy segment, a scholar’s sit-down talk. You’re not buying a coin plug — you’re earning a place in a conversation the audience already trusts.