South Korea’s retail crypto trading hits $18 billion, beating domestic stock market
Retail trading volume for crypto assets in South Korea rose to $18 billion in the past 24 hours, outperforming the country's stock market by 22 percent, according to 10x Research.
As retail crypto trading hit its second-highest level of the year on December 2, 10x Research founder Marcus Thielen said in a December 2 report that South Korean traders have been frustrated by a series of “high momentum” altcoins.
Ripple's XRP token (XRP) saw more than $6.3 billion in volume on the day in South Korea. Dogecoin (DOGE) is second at $1.6 billion, Stellar (XLM) at $1.3 billion, Ethereum Name Service (ENS) at $900 million, and Hedera (HBAR) at $800 million.
“These high-momentum cryptocurrencies are being driven primarily by retail, capital-driven and momentum-oriented trends.”
XRP, ENS and HBAR – all in the category of legacy tokens commonly referred to by crypto natives as “dino coins” – have all gained 90%, 73% and 90% respectively against the rest of the crypto market, and 168% last week.
Thielen noted that Bitcoin's funding rate — an indicator of perps activity — is “relatively mild” at just 15% on an annualized basis.
Bitcoin's funding rate is set at a “mild” 15%, while interest in altcoins is on the rise. Source: 10x Research
Combined with the recent surge in trading activity for altcoins, Thielen said this is a sure sign that an “altseason” is underway.
Related: Analyst warns of ‘leverage driven' XRP pump as Tether reverses
The volume of retail trade in Korea has risen to $18 billion.
He added, “The action is clearly in the altcoin market and everyone should have a strategy to catch these waves but still stay disciplined.”
Ripple's XRP has been on a historic rally over the past month, rising from $0.50 to a new annual high of $2.80 on Dec. 2, according to TradingView data.
XRP is up over 436% in the past month. Source: TradingView
The incredible run saw Solana (SOL) and Tether (USDT) eclipse each other in terms of market capitalization, making it the third largest crypto asset by total value at the time of publication.
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