{"id":805122,"date":"2026-03-05T07:13:17","date_gmt":"2026-03-05T07:13:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/805122\/"},"modified":"2026-03-05T07:13:17","modified_gmt":"2026-03-05T07:13:17","slug":"btc-gains-above-73000-as-money-flees-south-korean-stocks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/805122\/","title":{"rendered":"BTC gains above $73,000 as money flees South Korean stocks"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>South Korea\u2019s stock market suffered one of its fastest declines in history this week, with the Kospi falling about 20% in two trading days, as geopolitical tensions have, for the moment, shattered what might be termed a speculative bubble in popular AI-related names.<\/p>\n<p>The rapid decline followed months of aggressive buying by retail investors that had sent the Kospi \u2014 dominated by Samsung and SK Hynix \u2014 higher by nearly 180% in about 10 months.<\/p>\n<p>The timing has drawn attention to activity in Korea\u2019s crypto markets, where trading volumes have begun to climb again.<\/p>\n<p>South Korea is one of the few markets where retail traders play a major role in both equities and digital assets. Analysts have long observed that local traders often rotate between speculative markets, rather than exiting risk assets entirely.<\/p>\n<p>In November, a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.coindesk.com\/business\/2025\/11\/09\/the-great-korean-pivot-from-memecoins-to-machine-chips\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">CoinDesk analysis<\/a> described what was dubbed the \u201cGreat Korean Pivot,\u201d noting trading volumes on domestic crypto exchanges fell as retail traders moved into technology stocks tied to artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n<p>That equity rally, however, has now stalled or reversed.<\/p>\n<p>When one market cools, South Korean trader attention frequently shifts to another. That&#8217;s perhaps benefiting crypto, which has seen bitcoin climb 7% in the past 24 hours to above $73,000. Ether (ETH), solana (SOL) and XRP (XRP) are up similar amounts.<\/p>\n<p>Retail signals remain moderate<\/p>\n<p>While crypto trading volumes have moved higher, for the moment, at least, activity does not yet resemble the frenzied speculative surges seen in earlier Korean market cycles.<\/p>\n<p>One key metric is the Kimchi premium, which measures the difference between bitcoin prices on Korean exchanges and global markets. When domestic demand surges, bitcoin often trades at a noticeable premium in Korean won markets.<\/p>\n<p>That premium currently remains modest, with data from <a href=\"https:\/\/cryptoquant.com\/asset\/btc\/chart\/market-data\/korea-premium-index\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">CryptoQuant<\/a> showing the Korea Premium Index near 1%, well below levels seen during previous retail-driven rallies. There is, however, a modest uptick in retail sentiment as the Kimchi premium had dipped into negative territory in mid-January.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"South Korea\u2019s stock market suffered one of its fastest declines in history this week, with the Kospi falling&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":805123,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[6],"tags":[13957,51,49553,525,16,15],"class_list":["post-805122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-bitcoin-news","tag-business","tag-market-analysis","tag-south-korea","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116175333651806906","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/805122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=805122"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/805122\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/805123"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=805122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=805122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=805122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}