Coin or Share? Why Korea's Biggest Game-Token Trial Ended in Acquittal

For two and a half years, the most closely watched legal question in Korean blockchain gaming was not about a game at all. It was about a sentence. In early 2022, the head of one of Korea's biggest game publishers told the market that his company would stop selling its own game token. Prosecutors later said that promise was false, and that it was made to prop up the company's share price.

The defendant was Chang Hyun-guk (장현국), former CEO of Wemade, the Legend of Mir publisher that bet its future on the WEMIX token and its blockchain game platform. On 15 July 2025, the Seoul Southern District Court found him not guilty. In late November 2025, the Seoul High Court agreed. Prosecutors did not take the case to the Supreme Court by the 4 December 2025 deadline, so the acquittal is final.

The verdicts turned on a question that goes far beyond Wemade: is a game company's coin legally the same thing as its stock?

The case in one paragraph

WEMIX was first listed on a crypto exchange in 2020. Wemade then sold, or "liquidated", WEMIX worth about 290 billion won and used the money to fund its business. When those sales came to light and prices fell, Chang announced in early 2022 that liquidation would stop. Prosecutors alleged that from February to October 2022, Wemade nonetheless sold about 300 billion won more in WEMIX by undisclosed means, and that the halt announcement was a false statement meant to support both WEMIX and Wemade's share price. He was indicted without detention in August 2024 for violating the Capital Markets Act. (WEMIX's separate exchange delistings are a story of their own and are covered elsewhere in our blockchain section.)

Ruling one: the law does not cover coins

The first-instance court, Criminal Panel 13 of the Seoul Southern District Court, presided over by Judge Kim Sang-yeon, found the crime not proven. Its core reasoning, as reported:

• The Capital Markets Act covers financial investment products, not virtual assets.
• Prosecutors argued that because statements about WEMIX moved Wemade's stock, the coin had de facto securities characteristics. The court did not accept that.
• The newer Virtual Asset User Protection Act could not be applied retroactively to 2022 conduct.

Then the judge did something unusual. After reading out the acquittal, he added a remark that Korean reporters read as a rebuke: the defendant should think about how the same conduct would be judged today.

Ruling two: no intent, and a contradiction

Prosecutors appealed. In late November 2025, Criminal Division 13 of the Seoul High Court upheld the acquittal and went further on two points:

1. No intent to manipulate. The court found no intent to artificially prop up Wemade's share price. 2. Coins and shares are different things. WEMIX and Wemade stock are legally distinct, and statements about WEMIX alone could not establish a Capital Markets Act violation or an objective link to the stock price.

The appeal court also said the prosecution's case was internally inconsistent: it argued both that selling WEMIX raised Wemade's company value and that Chang's WEMIX statements manipulated the stock.

The securities question nobody answered

It is worth being precise about what the courts did and did not decide. They did not rule that WEMIX was harmless, or that Wemade's disclosures were good practice. They ruled that the Capital Markets Act was the wrong tool for statements about a coin made in 2022.

That leaves the bigger question open: when is a game token a security? Korea's Financial Services Commission published guidelines on token securities in February 2023, and in June 2024 it issued guidance on when an NFT counts as a virtual asset: mass issuance, divisibility or use as a means of payment all point that way (our NFT guide). Neither has yet been tested in a game-token case like this one. Abroad, the US Securities and Exchange Commission spent 2023 arguing that some NFTs were investment contracts, before changing course in 2025 (the SEC story).

For Korean game companies, the practical lesson is that the regime has changed under their feet. Conduct like Chang's 2022 announcement would now be judged under a law written specifically for crypto markets.

What changed in July 2024

The law the judge had in mind is the Virtual Asset User Protection Act, passed in 2023 and in force since 19 July 2024. It is Korea's first statute written specifically for crypto markets. Its headline features are protections for users' deposits and assets held by exchanges and, crucially for a case like this one, a ban on unfair trading in virtual assets, including trading on undisclosed material information, market manipulation and fraudulent dealing, with criminal penalties.

In other words, the gap that saved Chang, a securities law that does not reach coins, has largely been closed for anything that happens after July 2024. A game company making market-moving statements about its own token today faces a statute aimed directly at that conduct.

Where Chang is now

Chang left Wemade and now runs Nexus (넥써쓰), which operates CROSS, a blockchain game platform, and a web3 messenger. After the appeal ruling he said Nexus planned partnerships, a listing and licence applications, and the company has shown an AI agent called "Ara" to help developers and users manage services on CROSS. In 2025 Nexus set up Nexus China in Guangzhou and Nexus Hub FZCO in Dubai, while a planned Hong Kong stablecoin subsidiary was effectively halted by stricter licensing rules there from August 2025. It also sold and liquidated a small Vietnamese subsidiary in September 2025.

By the numbers

• 2020: WEMIX first listed on an exchange
• About 290 billion won: WEMIX liquidated before the 2022 announcement
• About 300 billion won: additional liquidation alleged for February to October 2022
• August 2024: indictment
• 15 July 2025: first acquittal
• November 2025: appeal acquittal
• 4 December 2025: appeal deadline passes; verdict final

What to watch

• The first game-token case under the Virtual Asset User Protection Act. That will show how the judge's warning plays out.
• How regulators treat in-game NFTs under the 2024 guidance.
• Nexus and CROSS. Chang's new venture is building in the same space that put him in court, now under a much stricter rulebook.

WGC's take: The acquittal was legally clean, and the courts were right to refuse to stretch securities law to fit a coin, a distinction that matters for every Korean studio with a token of its own. But players should not read it as a clean bill of health for game tokens. Korea has since written rules for exactly this kind of behaviour, and the next case will be fought on very different ground (Korea's P2E rules).