Political black swans arrive unexpectedly.
Affected by the turmoil of the South Korean martial law, the won and Korean stocks plummeted, and the BTC price on South Korea's largest crypto exchange, Upbit, briefly spiked to $61,600. Upbit data showed that as soon as the martial law news broke, the exchange rate of Bitcoin against the Korean won (KRW) crashed from 130 million won to 93.6 million won, a drop of nearly 33%. Major altcoins also experienced double-digit declines on the platform, including the recently surging XRP, as well as tokens like Shiba Inu and Dogecoin.
Whales scoop up chips at a low price.
This event created arbitrage opportunities for smart traders.
Unlike the past few years, when smart money could buy Bitcoin at lower prices on exchanges in Hong Kong and North America and then sell it in Korea at a 'kimchi premium', this time the situation can be reversed.
According to Lookonchain, as the South Korean market declined, many whales transferred large amounts of USDT to Upbit exchange to buy tokens at a discount.
Data shows that within an hour of the South Korean president announcing the emergency martial law, large traders transferred over $163 million of USDT to Upbit. Lookonchain stated on X: 'Many whales transferred large amounts of USDT to Upbit, possibly looking for bottom-fishing opportunities.' Due to the influx of panic sellers and bargain hunters, Upbit announced that its app and open API services were suspended and experiencing delays due to increased traffic.
In the early hours of the 4th local time, Yoon Suk-yeol announced the lifting of the martial law, just over six hours after he announced its implementation the previous evening. The price of Bitcoin on Upbit has slightly recovered, reaching around $88,600 as of the time of publication.
Bitwise Senior Investment Strategist Juan Leon stated that the discount of Bitcoin on South Korean exchanges reflects the 'congestion' of liquidity in centralized venues. He noted that although Bitcoin is a decentralized asset traded around the clock, chaos can still occur when 'special circumstances in a certain place' suddenly impose restrictions.
XRP whale activity has surged to an all-time high.
According to Bitpush data, the price of XRP tokens has surged fourfold over the past month, becoming the third-largest crypto asset by market capitalization.
CryptoQuant data shows that XRP whale activity has reached an all-time high. CryptoQuant analyst Woominkyu noted that historically, significant surges in whale trading activity of XRP are 'closely related to peaks in XRP price.' These transactions have recently surged, pushing the coin price to around $2.60, indicating that whales may be 'preparing for potential profit-taking or increased market activity.'
Analysts believe that the price momentum of XRP is driven by the launch of Ripple's stablecoin, potential pro-crypto leadership changes at the SEC, and expectations for the approval of a spot XRP ETF. Recently, at least five companies have applied to list spot XRP exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in the United States, including Grayscale, WisdomTree, Bitwise, 21Shares, and Canary Capital.
