79-Year-Old Donates 100,000 XRP: From War Orphan to Crypto Charity Pioneer

Gate News reports that a 79-year-old individual investor, Kim Geo-seok, has donated 100,000 XRP to Seoul National University Hospital, equivalent to approximately $145,000 at current prices. This is another digital asset donation received by the institution following his Bitcoin donation in November 2025, reflecting the expanding application of crypto assets in the field of public welfare.

Kim Geo-seok’s life story is quite legendary. He became an orphan at the age of four during the Korean War and was sent to live on Jeju Island. As an adult, he made a living through odd jobs and gradually accumulated wealth by self-studying investment knowledge over the years. He once looked up to Warren Buffett and Peter Lynch as learning models, but his investment journey was not smooth; he lost all his assets due to mistakes at one point. Subsequently, he rebuilt his investment portfolio through years of effort, ultimately achieving financial turnaround.

In recent years, this investor has gradually shifted his focus to charitable causes. To date, his total donations have reached 1.27 billion Korean won, covering medical institutions and public welfare organizations, including projects that fund medical services for uninsured groups. He began systematically participating in charitable donations in 2018 and has become one of the significant individual donors in the South Korean Red Cross system.

It is noteworthy that South Korea relaxed restrictions on non-profit organizations handling crypto assets in 2025, allowing them to convert donated digital currencies into fiat currency. This policy change has promoted the development of crypto philanthropy. Kim Geo-seok completed South Korea’s first individual crypto donation case in this framework in 2025 and has since supported public welfare projects multiple times in a similar manner.

The hospital stated that the XRP donation will be used for the construction of a children’s medical center and development fund. Kim Geo-seok has also expressed his long-term goal of making crypto donations a normalized behavior rather than a one-off event.

As digital assets gradually integrate into traditional public welfare systems, such cases may become one of the important directions for the application of the crypto industry.