Another noteworthy phenomenon has emerged regarding the listing of tokens on exchanges.
On the morning of December 10, after the Token Generation Event (TGE), the L2 project Move experienced a significant price difference across major exchanges; at one point it soared to $2.60 on Upbit, while at the same time the price on Binance was only around $1.20, with other platforms like OKX quoting $1.05. This once again staged a 'kimchi premium' event.
As of the time of publication, the price of Move on Upbit has fallen back to around $0.90, while exchanges like Binance are quoting $1.05.
The incident began on December 9, when multiple exchanges including Binance, OKX, and Upbit announced the launch of the Movement token, most of them at 8 PM UTC+8, with Binance initially announcing a launch time of 9 PM but later changed it to 8 PM.
It is noteworthy that the market has not seen many exchanges simultaneously listing the same token for a long time. According to CoinGecko statistics, there are currently 39 trading pairs for Move across more than 10 exchanges, with some of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in the world such as Binance, Coinbase, Upbit, Bybit, OKX, Bitget, and Gate all listing the Move token, with the community humorously referring to it as a 'grand slam'.
And it is precisely the different launch times of various trading platforms that laid the groundwork for the subsequent kimchi premium.
According to data released by ai_9684xtpa, the South Korean trading platforms Upbit and Bithumb were originally scheduled to launch MOVE simultaneously at 8 PM last night, while another smaller South Korean trading platform, Coinone, unexpectedly launched at 7:30 PM, with an opening price reaching 998,500 KRW (approximately $700).
This incident forced the two major South Korean trading platforms, Upbit and Bithumb, to delay the launch time of MOVE. Upbit chose to launch at 09:35 on December 10, with an opening price of 2263 KRW (approximately $1.59). This subsequently led to significant price discrepancies for MOVE on-chain, on South Korean trading platforms, and other major trading platforms.
So is there an arbitrage opportunity?
After the price differences appeared, platforms including OKX and Bitget closed the withdrawal function for Move tokens, which locked the arbitrage channel between exchanges, and arbitrage on South Korean exchanges requires relevant account support, making it particularly challenging for traders from Greater China. Currently, no information has been disclosed about which trader successfully profited from the price difference of Move.
The premium on the Move token also reflects the frenzy of South Korean crypto traders.
After Upbit listed Move, according to CoinGecko data, Upbit's 24-hour trading volume for MOVE reached $1.36 billion, accounting for 10.88% of the platform's total trading volume, making Upbit the largest CEX for trading this token.
Not only this token, but the trading volume of South Korean cryptocurrencies has also begun to approach that of its stock market.
On December 10, according to South Korean media Koreaherald, influenced by the domestic political situation, local investors flocked to alternative assets such as cryptocurrencies. As of 3:30 PM on December 6, the 24-hour trading volume of South Korea's top five cryptocurrency trading platforms Upbit, Bithumb, Coinone, Korbit, and Gopax was $14.59 billion. This amount is equivalent to 20.72 trillion KRW, nearly double the trading volume of the KOSPI Composite Index on that day, which was 10.48 trillion KRW.
In this context, it is not surprising that the cryptocurrency market has once again seen a 'kimchi premium'.
At the same time, what background does the Movement project have? The scale of its financing offers a glimpse into why it has garnered the favor of all exchanges.
Movement is an Ethereum-based Move EVM Layer2 solution that is fully compatible with the Move virtual machine, meaning it is compatible with both Ethereum and the Move ecosystem.
Movement Labs was founded in November 2022, and the two founders of Movement Labs, Rushi Manche and Cooper Scanlon, both previously attended Vanderbilt University in the United States. Most of their team has prior work experience in the Move ecosystem.
According to its founder Rushi, similar to Solana's Solang and Neon, Movement has built Fractal, an EVM interpreter that runs on Move. Any Solidity code can run and be fully compiled into Move bytecode to launch a virtual machine. This way, Movement has the same parallelization capabilities as Aptos and Sui, making it compatible with EVM.
Movement Labs' fundraising has also been extremely successful. Its pre-seed round in September 2023 raised $3.4 million led by institutions like Varys Capital, dao5, Blizzard Fund, and Borderless Capital, while the Series A round in April 2024 raised $38 million led by Polychain Capital, with participating institutions including Hack VC, OKX Ventures, Placeholder, Archetype, Robot Ventures, Figment Capital, Nomad Capital, Bankless Ventures, dao5, and Aptos Labs among others.
In addition, in May 2024, Binance Labs announced an investment in Movement, although the specific amount was not disclosed.
Besides the support from the VC team, the airdrop during Movement's TGE also satisfied many users.
On December 10, X user KuiGas stated that the Movement project, leveraging the airdrop mechanism and support from top exchanges, has become one of the best targets for ordinary people to turn the tables in 2024. Based on a $1.5 billion valuation, the airdrop share amounts to $150 million, and according to their calculations, Movement is offering a 10% airdrop share at a $1.5 billion valuation, which translates to about $150 per address for approximately 1 million addresses.
[Disclaimer] The market is risky, and investments require caution. This article does not constitute investment advice, and users should consider whether any opinions, views, or conclusions in this article align with their specific circumstances. Investing based on this is at one's own risk.