Upbit Trading Surges 600% as KOSPI Falls 18%
Get the Finance newsletter
Daily finance — markets, central banks, M&A, the prints that move money. Free.
- Upbit saw KRW/USDT trading volume jump from 20 million USDT on July 25 to nearly 200 billion won (140 million USDT) on July 29 — a roughly 600% spike — as the KOSPI fell nearly 18% for the week on a chip-maker sell-off.
- Tiger Research senior researcher Cho Yoon-sung told Seoul Economic Daily that demand likely increased for moving funds to overseas exchanges or personal wallets to trade perpetual stock futures, capitalizing on equities volatility.
- The KOSPI had already triggered an earlier Upbit volume surge on July 14 when the index plunged 10% in a single day, establishing a pattern between Korean equity routs and crypto exchange activity.
- Bitwise European head of research Andre Dragosch noted that "Bitcoin is essentially flat since semis peaked in late June," highlighting Bitcoin's "remarkable outperformance" relative to SpaceX (SPCX) and the Magnificent 7 despite tightening financial conditions.
- Bitwise described Bitcoin as the "canary in the macro coal mine," arguing it may already be signaling future central-bank monetary easing despite rising inflation and short-term rate-hike pressure.
- Korean retail traders, particularly younger ones, have demonstrated ongoing appetite for leveraged bets across both crypto and the AI trade, with crypto trading remaining a hive of activity in South Korea.
Why it matters: The 600% Upbit volume spike tied to the KOSPI's 18% plunge shows Korean retail traders are actively using crypto exchanges to trade domestic equity volatility, with Tiger Research pointing to outflows toward overseas platforms for perpetual stock futures — a capital flow that lands while Korean regulators are already advancing a separate crypto-gains tax proposal (per CoinDesk's parallel coverage), intensifying scrutiny on where that money is going.
