About 12.9 percent said they invested more than 10 million won, 9.8 percent invested between 2 million and 4 million won, and 7.8 percent invested between 4 million won and 6 million won.

About 80.3 percent said they earned money through their virtual currency investment, 6.4 percent said they lost money, and 13.2 percent said they neither lost nor earned money.

An earning rate of more than 10 percent was reported by 21.1 percent of those surveyed, while 19.4 percent said their returns were more than 100 percent.

More than half -- 54.2 percent -- said they chose to invest in cryptocurrencies as the fastest way of making money, while 47.8 percent said they did so because it was easy to invest a small amount of money in virtual currencies.

South Korea is home to one of the world's biggest bitcoin exchanges, with about 2 million people estimated to possess some of the best-known digital currencies, such as bitcoin and ethereum.

The virtual currency turnover at Bithumb soared to 56.3 trillion won in November from 300 billion won in January, according to the exchange operators.

The November figure was more than 80 percent of the monthly average turnover of 68.7 trillion won of the KOSDAQ, the nation's secondary stock market. (Yonhap)