South Korean lawmaker Lee Kang-il said $45.6 billion has flowed overseas and urged regulators to accelerate the introduction of rules governing won-denominated stablecoins, according to a report by local crypto outlet bloomingbit.

The figure places a hard number on what Korean policymakers have described informally for months: capital moving out of domestic channels and into foreign-currency digital assets. Lee's decision to attach a specific dollar amount to the outflow reframes the stablecoin debate from a market-development question into a matter of capital retention and monetary policy.

Who is making the claim?

Lee Kang-il, a member of South Korea's National Assembly, is the named source behind the $45.6 billion outflow estimate. His statement, as reported by bloomingbit, ties the scale of overseas flows directly to the absence of a regulatory framework that would allow won-backed stablecoins to exist legally inside Korea.

Lawmaker statements of this kind typically serve as opening moves in legislative pressure campaigns. By quantifying the outflow and pairing it with an explicit call for faster rulemaking, Lee is positioning the stablecoin file as urgent rather than discretionary.

What does the push for won stablecoin rules change?

The core of Lee's argument is structural. Without a domestic stablecoin framework, Korean users and businesses that want dollar-linked or other fiat-referenced digital assets must rely on offshore instruments. That routing pushes transaction volume, custody relationships and fee revenue outside Korean jurisdiction, and it removes the Bank of Korea and the Financial Services Commission from the payment chain.

Won-denominated stablecoins would change that operating model. A regulated issuer could hold won reserves onshore, subject to Korean audit and redemption requirements, and settle transfers that currently route through foreign networks. The consequence for exchanges, payment processors and fintech platforms would be a new compliant instrument to build settlement and remittance products around.

The obstacle is legislative sequencing. Stablecoin legislation in Korea has remained under discussion without a finalized framework, and Lee's intervention signals impatience with that timeline among at least some assembly members.

Why the outflow figure matters

The $45.6 billion estimate gives proponents of faster rulemaking a concrete talking point. Capital outflows are politically sensitive in Korea, where the government monitors the won and cross-border money movement closely. Framing stablecoin delay as a driver of measurable offshore leakage converts a crypto-policy issue into a macroeconomic one — the kind that tends to move legislative calendars.

It also sharpens the competitive argument. Other jurisdictions, including the United States with its federal stablecoin push and the European Union under MiCA, have moved ahead with issuer regimes. Korean policymakers who share Lee's view argue that each quarter of delay cedes issuance, reserves and settlement activity to foreign-domiciled issuers that Korean users can access but Korean authorities cannot supervise.

What comes next

Lee's statement adds assembly-level pressure for the stablecoin bill to advance through committee and toward a floor vote. Whether the $45.6 billion figure survives scrutiny in upcoming hearings will depend on the methodology behind it, which bloomingbit's report did not detail. For now, the number stands as the reference point in a debate that now has both a quantified problem and a named legislative proponent pushing for a statutory framework for won-backed digital currency.