South Korea's Supreme Court Clarifies the Enforcement Procedure for Crypto Assets

South Korea’s Supreme Court on November 9 confirmed that the revised Civil Execution Rules, effective November 1, now formally establish procedures for seizing, transferring, and liquidating crypto assets such as bitcoin. Under the new rules, exchange-held crypto can be enforced by attaching a user’s claim to transfer assets from the exchange, while for assets held directly in personal wallets, courts may bar the debtor from disposing of them and order transfer to an execution officer for sale or handover to creditors. The change matters because Korean civil enforcement cases involving crypto exchanges have surged from 423 in 2023 to 3,136 in 2025, with 3,186 already recorded in the first nine months of 2026. It gives creditors a clearer legal path to recover value from crypto holdings and reduces ambiguity over how exchange and self-custodied assets are treated in enforcement. Watch for how exchanges implement claim-attachment requests and whether the case surge continues as the new procedure is tested.