Key points
- Combined Upbit and Bithumb daily crypto trading rose 8.7 times in five days, to 7.651 trillion won ($5.5 billion) on August 22.
- On Upbit, a Trump memecoin traded more than bitcoin, which finished fourth behind XRP, the memecoin and tether.
- The money is rotating out of a cooling stock market, where Samsung fell 12% and SK Hynix fell 17% in August.
Korean money is pouring back into crypto, and it came in fast. Combined daily trading on Upbit and Bithumb rose from 881.2 billion won ($637 million) on August 17 to 7.651 trillion won ($5.5 billion) on August 22, about 8.7 times in five days. Weekend volume averaged 5.642 trillion won ($4.1 billion) against 2.222 trillion won ($1.6 billion) on the weekdays before, a difference of 2.54 times. Bitcoin was near $77,000, up 22% on the week, and ether was up 29%.
On Upbit, the country's biggest exchange, bitcoin barely got a look. It finished the weekend only fourth by trading volume, behind XRP, Official Trump (the memecoin tied to the US president), and tether. Across August 22 and 23, Upbit users traded 2.264 trillion won ($1.6 billion) of XRP. Official Trump came next at 1.027 trillion won ($743 million), which was 10.93% of everything the exchange traded, more than bitcoin's 380.7 billion won ($275 million). The Trump coin was near $2.34 by then, up about 26% in a day and more than 66% on the week. XRP's Saturday volume on Upbit alone reached 1.693 trillion won ($1.2 billion), the first time any single coin has cleared 1 trillion won there in 188 days.
The money is coming out of a stock market that's gone quiet. The Kospi rode Samsung and SK Hynix to record highs in the first half of the year, then turned cautious in August. Samsung fell 12% over the month and SK Hynix fell 17.23%, on peak-out worries and disappointment over their shareholder return plans, and the index lost 5.10%. Trading dried up with it. The Kospi's daily trading value averaged 26.277 trillion won ($19 billion) in August, down from 36.875 trillion won ($26.7 billion) in July and the lowest of 2026.
Individual investors have been stepping back for months. Their share of Kospi trading fell from about 48% at the start of the year to about 31% by July, while foreigners filled the gap. Yoon Seung-sik, center director at Tiger Research, tied the crypto surge to that retreat, saying money started looking at coins once Korean stocks turned cautious. A researcher at Presto Research put the choice of coins down to habit. "Korean retail investors have a strong tendency to chase returns rather than stay in one particular asset," the researcher said.
Not all of that money went to crypto. Some of it went into bank deposits. But last week most of the trading moved to coins. Bitcoin rose 22% on the week while stocks stayed quiet, and people followed it. Whether they stay once the rally cools, nobody knows yet.
The Kospi steadied on Monday, rising 0.68%. It reopened to a market holding less of its own retail money than at any point this year.
Sources:
- 이투데이, 주말 뜨거웠던 코인시장, on the daily volume figures, the weekend comparison and the asset rankings
- 비인크립토, XRP·TRUMP 신기록 견인, on the Official Trump share of Upbit volume and its price move
- 파이낸셜뉴스, 상승 모멘텀 못찾는 코스피, on the August trading value and the Samsung and SK Hynix declines
- 파이낸셜뉴스, 개인 거래비중 반년 만에 48%→31%, on individual investors leaving the stock market
Our earlier coverage:
- The Kospi rebounded 11%. Korea's leveraged investors did not.
- Korean retail investors sent $4.6 billion to US stocks just before the Kospi rebounded.
Won figures are converted to US dollars at an exchange rate near 1,382.4 won to the dollar. The Presto Research comment is translated from Korean. This is not investment advice.
