South Korean President Yoon Seok-yeol announced an emergency curfew on Tuesday night (December 3), causing the Bitcoin market on Upbit, South Korea's largest crypto exchange, to fluctuate violently. The price of the currency once dropped to $71,800, a plunge of nearly 30%. Subsequently, the price rebounded quickly and South Korea announced the lifting of martial law. On Wednesday, Bitcoin rushed to $96,000, and US President-elect Trump announced that he would announce the chairman of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) as early as this week.
According to data from the Upbit exchange, after the president announced martial law, the bitcoin/won exchange rate plummeted from about 130 million won to 93.6 million won, a drop of 28%, before recovering to more than 126 million won. Yoon Seok-yeol previously said that he declared martial law in response to "the threat of North Korean forces and to eliminate anti-state elements."
Ash Crypto, a cryptocurrency opinion leader, wrote: "Breaking news, South Korean President Yoon Young-kang just declared martial law across the country. People think North Korea is involved and South Koreans are in a panic. On Upbit, the largest exchange in South Korea, Bitcoin fell from $95,800 to $71,800 in a few minutes, a drop of 27%."
As lawmakers held an emergency vote and voted 190-0 to lift martial law, National Assembly Speaker Woo Won-sik said, "The president should have lifted the emergency martial law immediately after the congress voted. Now, the emergency martial law is invalid."
As the world’s 13th largest economy, South Korea is home to several companies that could be affected by the country’s political instability, including Samsung and SK Group. In addition to Upbit, South Korea is also home to cryptocurrency exchanges Bithumb, Korbit and Coinone.
Lawmakers from South Korea’s opposition Democratic Party initially proposed taxing cryptocurrency capital gains starting in 2025, but announced on Dec. 1 that they would postpone the plan by two years.
Simon Kim, CEO of Hashed, South Korea's largest cryptocurrency venture capital firm, revealed in a Twitter post on Sunday that the South Korean government may soon allow domestic currency issuance and open up institutional investment in cryptocurrencies.
Well-known Fox Business reporter Eleanor Terrett revealed on Twitter that US President-elect Trump will announce the candidate for chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission as early as Wednesday local time.
According to data from Kalshi, a large cryptocurrency betting platform, traders are betting that former SEC Commissioner Paul Atkins will succeed Gensler. Crypto Briefing reported that if confirmed as the chairman of the SEC, Atkins is expected to take a more balanced approach to cryptocurrency regulation.
Next week, December 10th, will be a key date for both the Microsoft and Bitcoin communities as shareholders of the Wall Street tech giant will vote on whether to add Bitcoin to its balance sheet.
The results will show whether shareholders are attracted to Bitcoin's current state, or want to stick with Microsoft's pragmatic, profitable approach to technology development.
Before the U.S. presidential election, Microsoft's 14A filing with the SEC included a section titled "Evaluation of Investing in Bitcoin," which stated that the company should consider using Bitcoin to diversify its assets as an "excellent, or even the best, inflation hedge."
However, in the "Board Recommendation" section just below the proposal, Microsoft's board of directors recommends that shareholders vote against it, saying that the company's management has carefully considered the topic.
To gauge the potential impact on its stock, Microsoft enlisted MicroStrategy Chairman Michael Saylor to promote the addition of Bitcoin to the company’s reserves.
In a 3-minute presentation containing 44 slides, Saylor went all out, claiming that Microsoft could add $5 trillion to its current market value of about $3.19 trillion. He believes Microsoft should invest $100 billion in Bitcoin every year, claiming that "buying Bitcoin makes more sense than buying back its own shares or holding bonds."
Bitcoin Technical Analysis
Economies.com said that Bitcoin price reached the first negative target of the recommendation, which is $94,655, noting that the price had a bullish rebound, trying to recover and resume the main bullish trend again, driven by stochastic positivity, forming a recommended bullish bias, initially waiting for a test of $97,400, and noting that a break above this level will push the price to achieve additional gains to $100,000.
Therefore, positive intraday trading is expected and note that a break below $94,640 will halt the expected up move and push the price to suffer further losses towards $91,855.
“The current expected trading range is between the $94,400 support and $99,000 resistance.”
“Trend forecast is bullish.”
