![\"Bithumb](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/news-p.v1.20260730.382af2c6d28041d59a5f1ff25226c477_P1.jpg\"\/ "\\"Crypto")
Bithumb Lounge in Gangnam-gu, Seoul. Yonhap News<\/p>\nBithumb Lounge in Gangnam-gu, Seoul. Yonhap News<\/p>\n
Trading at Korean cryptocurrency exchanges rose noticeably over the past two days, during which KOSPI’s market capitalization shed as much as 864 trillion won. Analysts say the increase may reflect the possibility that some funds fleeing the stock market moved into the cryptocurrency market, along with fund flows aimed at trading Korean stock-linked derivatives on overseas exchanges.<\/p>\n
According to data compiled by CoinGecko on the 30th, trading value at Korea’s five major cryptocurrency exchanges \u2014 Upbit, Bithumb, Coinone, Korbit and Gopax \u2014 totaled $964.11 million (about 1.386 trillion won) on the 28th, when the KOSPI fell more than 10% and triggered a circuit breaker. That marked an 82.5% increase from the $528.39 million average daily trading volume over the previous month. On the 29th, when the KOSPI declined for a second consecutive day, trading value came in at $831.76 million, 57.4% above the monthly average.<\/p>\n
The expansion in trading volume was especially pronounced on Upbit. Upbit’s trading value on the 28th was about $715 million, nearly double its average daily figure over the past month (about $356 million). On the 29th, it recorded about $596 million, staying roughly 67% higher than usual. This is interpreted as the result of investor orders concentrating on exchanges with abundant liquidity amid sharp price swings.<\/p>\n
![\"null](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/news-g.v1.20260730.3af09e55429f4a3db7978cec6f44a40f_P1.jpg\"\/ "\\"Crypto")
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The market has raised the possibility that, as recent stock market volatility increased, some short-term investment funds moved back into the cryptocurrency market. According to this analysis, short-term investment funds that had flowed into the stock market on the back of this year’s strength in semiconductor shares and the popularity of leveraged investing returned in part to the cryptocurrency market as the KOSPI plunged for two straight days and volatility expanded.<\/p>\n
However, there is also a view that not all of the trading increase can be interpreted as an inflow of new investment funds. As concerns over margin calls grew amid falling stock prices, a considerable number of investors may have sold cryptocurrency they held to raise cash. Given the nature of cryptocurrency, which can be traded 24 hours a day and is relatively easy to convert to cash, the possibility that it was used as a liquidity tool to secure margin cannot be ruled out.<\/p>\n
The surge in dollar stablecoin trading is particularly notable. On Upbit, Tether (USDT) trading value on the 28th reached 121.529 billion won, far surpassing both Bitcoin (89.686 billion won) and Ethereum (59.827 billion won). The following day, USDT trading value rose to 200.045 billion won, about double that of Bitcoin and roughly triple that of Ethereum. Considering that the trading volume on the 28th of last month was 28.322 billion won, this represents a surge of about fourfold and sevenfold, respectively, in just one month.<\/p>\n
As a result, some are also focusing on the possibility that cases of exchanging won for USDT and then transferring it to overseas cryptocurrency exchanges or decentralized exchanges (DEX) have increased. There may have been fund movements to buy derivatives such as Korean stock perpetual futures \u2014 which cannot be traded domestically \u2014 on overseas platforms, or to bet on further declines. “There is a possibility that demand has increased to move funds to overseas exchanges or personal wallets to trade Korean stock-related perpetual futures,” said Cho Yoon-sung, a senior researcher at Tiger Research.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bithumb Lounge in Gangnam-gu, Seoul. Yonhap News Trading at Korean cryptocurrency exchanges rose noticeably over the past two…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":104696,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[457],"tags":[54062,337,54059,54063,26803,864,24838,54060,54061],"class_list":["post-104695","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-korea-exchange","tag-crypto-trading-surge","tag-korea-exchange","tag-korean-cryptocurrency-exchanges","tag-korean-stock-perpetual-futures","tag-kospi-plunge","tag-krx","tag-margin-call","tag-upbit-trading-volume","tag-usdt-stablecoin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104695","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104695"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104695\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/104696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}