Since the start of this year, South Korea has gathered a huge amount of attention for its activities and decisions over cryptocurrencies. A recently published report quotes that a significant surge in the digital asset trading volume has been registered in the nation, and a major involvement of senior citizens has been noted.
Several media outlets quote that the collective trading volume of centralized exchanges such as Coinone, Korbit, Upbit, Bithumb, and GOPAX has crossed the milestone of $10 million. It is worth noting that the spike is primarily seen in the trading volume of stablecoins.
The volume recorded in November this year is 16.17 trillion won, which has grown at an appreciable pace as it recorded roughly two trillion won at the opening of this year.
The recent spike is the first massive growth registered in the stablecoin’s trading volume, which helped it to surpass the milestone of 10 trillion won.
The published report highlights that USDT (Tether) and USDC (USDC) remain the most traded coins in South Korea, followed by other stablecoins.
On December 02, 2024, the recorded volume of the global digital asset market was 262 trillion won, with a contribution of 9.05 percent from the South Korean market. Experts argue that the spike in the trading volume seems to be solely fueled by the skyrocketing trend of transferring crypto from one region to another, and the rules and regulations of the nation.
Most recently, it came into the spotlight that South Korea intended to postpone the final decision on the crypto tax on traders to 2027, yet it was earlier scheduled for 2025.
Senior Citizens to Surpass Gen Z in Crypto Adoption!
As per the available data, senior citizens especially once above 60 years hold a significant amount of crypto compared to other generations. A rising trend in the number of crypto wallets has surged at a great pace in the past few months.
Several centralized cryptocurrency exchanges in South Korea have reported that the number of accounts owned by senior citizens has surged at a rapid pace, marking an increase of 31 percent roughly since the end of 2021.
However, the growing adoption has impacted the traditional finance system of the nation, with a decline in the number of users of banks and other traditional financing services.
Finance experts believe that this ripple action could help the banks to follow the growing trend with the integration of blockchain and other similar technology to retain their customer base.
The Korea Financial Intelligence Unit (KOFIU) has highlighted a significant increase in the number of active users on registered cryptocurrency exchanges in South Korea. By the end of 2023, the user count rose by 390k, reaching a total of 6.45 million.
This surge demonstrates the growing interest and participation of South Koreans in digital asset platforms, aligning with the global trend of rising cryptocurrency adoption.
