Did all the currency traders switch to stocks? The trading volume of cryptocurrencies in South Korea has dropped sharply to about 1% of the stock trading volume.

On Thursday (July 23), according to industry data, the trading volume of major cryptocurrency exchanges in South Korea has shrunk to approximately 1% of the local stock market trading volume. According to data from the cryptocurrency market observation platform CoinGecko, from July 1 to this Tuesday (July 21), the daily average trading volume of the top five virtual asset exchanges in South Korea (Upbit, Bithumb, Coinone, Korbit, and Gopax) was 597.8 billion Korean Won (approximately $406.5 million). This figure accounts for 1.59% of the benchmark Kospi market's daily average trading volume, while during the same period, the daily average trading volume of the Korean stock market was 37.6 trillion Korean Won (approximately $256.3 billion). Since the beginning of this year, the proportion of cryptocurrency market trading volume to the Kospi market has been declining, from 11.29% in January to around 6% in March and April, and then to around 2% in May. Contrast with the past The current trend contrasts sharply with November 2024. At that time, the daily average trading volume of cryptocurrencies soared to 21 trillion Korean Won, as people then anticipated cryptocurrency-friendly policies from the second government of US President Trump. During that period, data shows that South Korea's cryptocurrency market was highly concentrated in two major exchanges - Upbit and Bithumb, with these two exchanges accounting for over 90% of the domestic total volume, while the other three exchanges accounted for only around 6% to 1%. Regarding the current situation, some market observers point out that one of the reasons for the recent decline in cryptocurrency trading volume is the fluctuation in Bitcoin prices and funds flowing towards the stock market, which had just experienced a widespread rise in the semiconductor sector. Furthermore, due to South Korea's unique market structure, most cryptocurrency investments are concentrated in altcoins (non-bitcoin cryptocurrencies), which means that the outflow of funds is further accelerated. Park Sung-jae, an analyst at New Han Securities, stated, "Investments are also shifting to overseas exchanges, such as Binance because foreign cryptocurrency exchanges offer a variety of investment options, such as futures and leveraged trading, while in Korea, spot trading is currently the only practical trading choice." This article is reproduced from "Cai Lianshe," written by Zhou Ziyi; GMTEight editor: Feng Qiuyi.