Broadcaster Seo Dong-ju. [Herald POP (now Herald Muse) provided]
Broadcaster Seo Dong-ju. [Herald POP (now Herald Muse) provided]

Seo Dong-ju, a 43-year-old lawyer and broadcaster and the daughter of the late comedian Seo Se-won, said the bitcoin investment generated a large profit that helped buy a home.

Seo posted a video Thursday on YouTube channel "Seo Dong-ju's Tto.Do.Dong" under the title "Seo Dong-ju, who put a junior lawyer salary into crypto, becomes a global event host 10 years later!" In the video, Seo appeared as a host at Korea Blockchain Week (KBW) 2026.

Seo said she first encountered bitcoin in 2018 when she joined a law firm as a junior associate. She learned about virtual assets after the firm set up a blockchain department.

"A sunbae at the firm told me everything would become virtual assets," Seo said. "Because I was a bold new hire, I spent my entire salary buying bitcoin and ethereum. Three months later, it had tripled. I eventually used that money to buy a house."

In 2024, Seo won a court auction for a detached house in Changdong, Dobong-gu, Seoul for about 800 million won ($598,000), which Seo uses as a marital home. The property has a land area of about 175 square meters and a building footprint of about 69 square meters. It has not been confirmed, however, whether that is the same home purchased with the cryptocurrency gains.

"In Korea, when people first heard about bitcoin, they saw it shoot up and crash, so there was a perception of 'isn't this a scam?' or 'isn't this gambling?'" Seo said. "But behind long-established virtual assets like bitcoin and ethereum, there is a philosophical dimension."

Seo then explained: "The reason bitcoin was created was that when you send money through a bank, you have to pay fees even though it's your own money. The idea was, what if people could send it directly to each other without going through a bank? For that to work, there needs to be mutual trust, so blockchain was created — everything gets written into blocks, no one can alter the transaction records, trustworthy transactions become possible, and fees become unnecessary."

"People started using blockchain with the philosophy of conducting transactions without a powerful central institution like a bank," Seo added. "If you understand the backstory — that virtual assets were built on the broad concept of decentralization — I think you'd feel less resistant to them."


paq@heraldcorp.com