Virtual asset integrated analysis system operation and maintenance specs released
NTS calls for user, exchange and year-end top-holder statistics management
Tax deferral debate grows as Finance Ministry holds talks with five major exchanges
The National Tax Service is moving to track year-end holdings of so-called "big crypto holders" — users with large virtual asset positions — as part of a broader push to stand up its virtual asset transaction analysis system ahead of next year's planned taxation of individual crypto income. The effort comes as both the industry and ruling and opposition parties have raised calls to delay the tax.
According to the Public Procurement Service's Narajangteo portal, the NTS published preliminary specifications on Oct. 6 for a project to operate and maintain its "2027 Digital Forensics System and Virtual Asset Integrated Analysis System." The budget allocated for the project is about 1.38 billion won ($1.04 million), covering not only the virtual asset integrated analysis system but also maintenance of the digital forensics system.
The most notable element of the service contract is a requirement for "year-end top-holder virtual asset statistics." The NTS specified that system administrators must operate and maintain transaction statement statistics broken down by user, virtual asset type and exchange — as well as year-end statistics on the top holders. The intent is to build the infrastructure needed to identify, on an exchange-by-exchange basis, users who hold large amounts of virtual assets.
This represents a more detailed scope than the virtual asset integrated analysis system construction project the NTS commissioned in February this year. In that earlier project, the NTS committed about 3 billion won to build functions for analyzing demographic data by transaction type, trading volume by virtual asset category, and fund inflow and outflow by exchange.
The NTS plans to operate a system linking transaction statements and transaction summary tables submitted by virtual asset service providers with taxpayer filing and audit data for integrated analysis. The request for proposals also calls for the NTS to run full nodes on select blockchains — including Bitcoin and Tron — to directly collect ledger data.
Mixing transactions — in which funds pass through multiple steps to obscure their origin — are also among the targets for analysis. The NTS called for the ability to trace swaps across more than 100 blockchains and to identify IP addresses, connection locations and Tor usage linked to virtual asset wallet addresses. Assets covered include Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, Tron and XRP.
"Systematic management of vast virtual asset transaction records and analysis of individual transaction flows will improve the efficiency of virtual asset tax investigations," the NTS said in its request for proposals.
Meanwhile, the industry has consistently called for an additional deferral of the virtual asset income tax. Critics argue that detailed taxation standards for crypto-specific transaction types — including staking, airdrops and decentralized finance — remain unclear, that the tax equity gap between virtual assets and domestic equities has not been resolved, and that obtaining sufficient transaction data from overseas exchanges remains a practical challenge.
Legislative momentum for a deferral has built across party lines. Rep. Park Min-gyu of the Democratic Party of Korea introduced a bill on Friday that would in effect push back the effective date of virtual asset income taxation to January 2029. Earlier, People Power Party Rep. Song Eon-seog introduced a bill in March to delete the virtual asset taxation provisions entirely, while Reps. Kim Sang-hoon and Jeong Seong-guk filed separate bills in August to delay the tax's implementation.
The Ministry of Economy and Finance held a field briefing on virtual assets Tuesday morning at the Seoul Regional Office of the Public Procurement Service in Seocho-gu, chaired by First Vice Minister Kwon Dae-young. The heads of the five major Korean won-denominated exchanges, the Digital Asset eXchange Alliance (DAXA) and Tiger Research attended, along with legal experts including Han Seo-hee, an attorney at law firm Bae, Kim & Lee.
kyoung@heraldcorp.com
