South Korea's cryptocurrency market suffered a sharp decline after emergency martial law was declared yesterday. This led to a massive sell-off, with the prices of most cryptocurrencies dropping to monthly lows.
After the turmoil, local exchanges broke records for the second day in a row with daily trading volume, almost double the previous milestone.
South Korea's virtual currency trading volume reaches record day
On Tuesday, the prices of Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), XRP (XRP), and most cryptocurrencies plummeted on South Korean cryptocurrency exchanges following the declaration of emergency martial law for the first time in 44 years in South Korea. It fell.
Bitcoin prices fell sharply against the South Korean won trading pair on domestic exchanges, dropping about 33% to 88.26 million RWM, equivalent to about $62,000, on South Korea's largest cryptocurrency exchange Upbit.
Similarly, Ethereum retraced its value by 38% to trade at 3.12 million won (approximately $2,200). Meanwhile, XRP saw the biggest decline among the top three cryptocurrencies, plummeting 60% from the 4,000 won level to 1,623 won (approximately $1.23).
Amid the cull, Whale deposited more than 163 million USDT into Upbit, apparently looking for a “bottom fishing opportunity.” Notably, local crypto exchanges recorded a massive spike in trading volume, marking the second record-breaking trading volume this week.
Upbit recorded a huge trading volume of $27.25 billion on December 3rd, followed by Bithumb with $6 billion, and Coinone and Korbit with daily trading volume of $531 million and $192 million, respectively. It was a million dollars. This volume of trades resulted in more than $34 billion traded in 24 hours across these exchanges, an 88% increase over the $18 billion milestone on December 2nd.
On Monday, 10x Research founder Marcus Thielen revealed that South Korea's crypto trading volume hit the second-highest level this year, 22% higher than the $14 billion traded on the domestic stock market. .
According to the report, South Korea has seen a significant increase in transaction volume, mainly in the retail industry, with XRP leading the way. The cryptocurrency recorded a volume of $6.3 billion on Monday, followed by Dogecoin at $1.6 billion and Stellar at $1.3 billion.
“These high-momentum cryptocurrencies are primarily driven by retail traders, who are capitalizing on and reinforcing momentum-based trends,” Thielen said.
Martial law declared for 6 hours
President Yoon Seok-yeol announced the measures on live television, causing panic among South Koreans for the next few hours. At the press conference, he accused the opposition Democratic Party, which has a majority in the Diet, of sympathizing with North Korea and anti-national activities.
For context, a declaration of martial law replaces a civilian government with military rule and restricts free speech, protest, and civil rights. In addition, special changes to the powers of the government and courts and the warrant system are permitted under the provisions of relevant laws.
Yoon claimed that he took this step to “eradicate pro-North Korean forces and protect the constitutional democratic order.” Despite this, Democratic Party leader Lee Jae-myung announced that he would try to override the order stipulated in South Korean law and livestreamed himself climbing to the National Assembly gates.
It is worth noting that under South Korean law, the president must lift emergency martial law if the parliament requests it by a majority vote of its members. About three hours after the declaration, 190 current members of the 300-member Diet voted against martial law, and the president accepted it a few hours later.
Since the market crash, most cryptocurrencies have recovered and are trading above pre-martial law levels. As of this writing, Bitcoin is trading at 135.2 million won, equivalent to approximately $95,400.
Bitcoin is trading at $96,138 on the 1-week chart. Source: BTCUSDT on TradingView
Featured image from Unsplash.com, chart from TradingView.com
