A South Korean official who guided Seoul’s regulatory clampdown on cryptocurrencies was found dead on Sunday, according to a government spokesman.

Jung Ki-joon, 52, was head of economic policy at the Office for Government Policy Coordination. He helped coordinate efforts to create new legislation aimed at suppressing cryptocurrency speculation and illicit activity, the spokesman said.

Semiofficial news agency Yonhap reported that Mr. Jung was presumed to have suffered a heart attack and police had opened an investigation into the cause of death. Yonhap also reported that Mr. Jung was found at home. The government spokesman said later that “he died from some unknown cause. He passed away while he was sleeping and [his] heart [had] already stopped beating when he was found dead.”

Mr. Jung’s colleagues said he had been under heavy stress in recent months as South Korea worked to tackle cryptocurrency speculation, Yonhap reported.

South Korea has been a hot spot for cryptocurrency trading and the threat of new legislation has weighed on the price of bitcoin this year following a manic rally in 2017.


Bitcoin recently traded at around $11,000, according to research site CoinDesk. It nearly reached $20,000 in December before global efforts to regulate cryptocurrencies gained steam. That prompted bitcoin, which is just one cryptocurrency, to lose as much as 70% of its value, falling to a low of just less than $6,000 earlier this month.

Still, bitcoin began 2017 at under $1,000. Investor enthusiasm in South Korea was one of the reasons prices soared so high in 2017. That concerned Prime Minister Lee Nak-yon, who warned late last year that rising interest in cryptocurrencies could “lead to some serious distorted or pathological phenomenon.”

The virtual currency bitcoin continues surging to new highs as a frenzy of investors get in on the action. WSJ's Paul Vigna explains what you need to know, and how to invest should you want to join the mania. Photo: Alexander Hotz/The Wall Street Journal.

At a briefing last month, Mr. Jung said virtual currencies like bitcoin weren’t a form of legal currency and the government would “strongly respond to excessive cryptocurrency speculation and illegal activity.”

About 4.5% of all bitcoin transactions world-wide last year used the South Korean won, making it the most widely used fiat currency in bitcoin trading after the U.S. dollar, the Japanese yen and the euro, according to CryptoCompare. The South Korean won was also the second-most commonly used currency for trading some alternative cryptocurrencies, including ether and Bitcoin Cash, which is a bitcoin rival.


Bitcoin prices have also surged much higher in South Korea than other parts of the world, another example of the frenetic trading environment. At times in recent months, the price of bitcoin traded more than 50% higher in South Korea than in other countries, a phenomenon that traders called the “kimchi premium.”

That premium has all but disappeared as authorities have considered strict measures, including banning cryptocurrency trading on exchanges.

So far, South Korea has imposed more strict verification checks for cryptocurrency investors. They are now required to hold certified bank accounts to buy cryptocurrency using legal tender.

Write to Steven Russolillo at steven.russolillo@wsj.com