Korean Comedian's Wife Bought Bitcoin at $220 — He's Finally Telling the Story

Korean comedian Park Young-jin is finally ready to talk about it. Appearing on KBS2's variety show Malja Show on March 30, Park revealed that his wife purchased Bitcoin when it was trading at around 300,000 Korean won per coin — roughly $220 USD at the time. One Bitcoin now costs approximately 100 million won, or around $73,000.

The story, which Park shared during the show's "Office Workers Special" episode, instantly captured audience attention. What makes it compelling is not just the numbers — it's the decade-long silence around a financial decision that quietly turned into one of the smarter investments in recent Korean celebrity household history.

Who Is Park Young-jin?

Park Young-jin is a veteran KBS comedian who made his name through Gag Concert, the long-running sketch comedy institution that defined Korean broadcast humor for over two decades. He was part of KBS's 22nd class of comedians, the same cohort as Heo Kyunghwan and Yang Sangguk — friends he referenced during the taping, saying he had a message he wanted to deliver to both of them.

He also joked that the seat currently occupied by comedian Jeong Beomgyun on the show was "originally his spot," drawing laughs from the studio. In 2016, Park married a non-celebrity four years his junior, and the couple has kept a relatively low public profile since. The Bitcoin revelation is one of the more personal — and certainly the most financially dramatic — stories he has shared in recent years.

The Investment That Changed Everything

Bitcoin was trading at approximately 300,000 won in 2015 to 2016, a period when cryptocurrency was still largely unfamiliar to the Korean general public. The decision to purchase at that price point would have required a combination of early awareness, risk tolerance, and a fair amount of trust in an asset that most financial advisors at the time would have dismissed outright. Park's wife made that call.

Today, a single Bitcoin is worth approximately 100 million won — meaning the asset has appreciated more than 300 times over from that entry price. Whether the family held, sold, or converted any portion of the investment is one of the details that makes the show's reveal all the more anticipated. Park teased the outcome without giving the full picture, which is exactly the kind of hook that drives viewers to tune in.

"My wife bought Bitcoin at around 300,000 won," he said, letting the information land before the audience's reaction filled the studio.

The Show: Malja Show's Office Workers Special

Malja Show is a KBS2 variety program hosted by veteran comedian Kim Younghee, who plays the character "Malja Grandma" — a warm but sharp-tongued older woman known for cutting through social awkwardness with blunt humor. The show's format typically invites guests to share real-life struggles, workplace stories, and personal revelations, with Kim Younghee reacting and riffing in character.

Park Young-jin appeared as the first "empathy guest" of the office worker-themed episode. The framing was deliberate: his story resonates with anyone who has ever hesitated on an investment, watched from the sidelines as an asset exploded in value, or lived with a spouse whose financial instincts turned out to be significantly sharper than their own.

The second guest for the evening was KBS announcer Eom Jiin, known informally as a rising force in the broadcaster's entertainment division. Eom reportedly declared herself "Korea's number one announcer" and teased plans to announce a freelance transition — in front of the KBS president, no less. The combination of Park's financial story and Eom's professional bravado made for an episode that promised more candor than a typical variety show preview.

Bitcoin in Korean Pop Culture

Korea has long been one of the world's most active cryptocurrency markets. During the 2017 bull run, domestic exchange premiums — the so-called "kimchi premium" — saw Bitcoin trading at significantly higher prices in Korea than on international markets, reflecting intense domestic demand. The cultural fascination with cryptocurrency has only deepened over the years, with crypto stories becoming a regular fixture in Korean media and entertainment.

Stories of early adopters — whether celebrated or cautionary — have become a recurring theme in Korean variety television. Guests revealing surprise fortunes, regretted early sales, or missed opportunities have proven consistently compelling, tapping into a shared anxiety about financial timing that transcends any single asset class.

What distinguishes Park's story is the human detail at its center. This is not a tech investor or finance professional — it's a comedian's wife who made a decision years ago that most people around her probably did not understand at the time. That framing makes it immediately relatable to a broad audience, regardless of whether they have ever touched crypto themselves. Significant financial decisions sometimes happen not in boardrooms but at kitchen tables, driven more by instinct than analysis.

Park Young-jin has remained a familiar face in Korean broadcasting even as the golden era of sketch comedy gave way to the reality and talk-show formats that now dominate the landscape. His return to a major KBS platform comes at a moment when the network is actively working to revitalize its entertainment lineup, and his willingness to share a genuinely personal financial story — rather than a curated anecdote — reflects the confessional tone that modern Korean variety audiences have come to expect.

What to Watch For

The full picture of what Park and his wife did with the Bitcoin investment — whether they sold early, held through multiple bull and bear cycles, or still hold today — was not revealed in advance. That deliberate withholding is part of the episode's design: audiences who tuned in for the variety show format got more than a comedy set. They got a genuine moment of financial suspense wrapped in the comfortable format of a late-night talk show.

For viewers who missed the broadcast, the episode is expected to be available on KBS's streaming platforms shortly after the original air date. Malja Show airs Mondays at 10:00 PM KST on KBS2.