가상자산보험(Virtual Asset Insurance)의 다변화에 관한 소고-가상자산 사업자의 캡티브(Captive) 보험사 활용 가능성을 중심으로-

Recently, the global virtual asset market has been reaching all-time highs in terms of transaction volume, market capitalization, deposits, and the operating profits of service providers. However, security issues such as hacking and theft have also increased proportionally. In response, insurance companies have begun offering so-called "virtual asset insurance," which has already grown into a market worth tens of billions of dollars. Nevertheless, the rapid advancement of underlying technologies, the lack of loss history and relevant data, and other uncertainties make it difficult to conduct proper risk assessments for insurance product development. In particular, Korea’s Act on the Protection of Virtual Asset Users, which came into effect on July 19th of last year, requires virtual asset service providers to insure or set aside reserves equivalent to the greater of 5% of the economic value of users' virtual assets stored in hot wallets or KRW 3 billion (KRW 500 million for businesses without real-name verification accounts). Accordingly, this paper provides an overview of virtual assets, virtual asset insurance as a new insurance product, and the relevant market in Chapter 2, while also introducing virtual asset custody methods and related insurance theories. Chapter 3 analyzes key players in the virtual asset insurance industry, product design approaches, and the limitations of current insurance products caused by factors such as the lack of loss history and data, the volatility of underlying technologies, unclear coverage scope, and insurers’ insufficient understanding of the industry. Based on this analysis, Chapter 4 proposes the establishment of a captive insurance company as an alternative to enhance the effectiveness and value of virtual asset insurance for both insurers and policyholders. The chapter further explores the availability of utilizing captive insurance in this context.