Juan Leon, senior investment strategist at Bitwise, said bitcoin’s discount on South Korean exchanges reflects the “stuckness” of liquidity within centralized venues.
Written by: BitpushNews
Political black swans come without warning.
Affected by the martial law in South Korea, the Korean won and Korean stocks plummeted, and the price of BTC on Upbit, South Korea's largest crypto exchange, once plunged to $61,600. Upbit data shows that as soon as the martial law news came out, the exchange rate of Bitcoin to the Korean won (KRW) plummeted from 130 million won to 93.6 million won, a drop of nearly 33%. Mainstream altcoins also saw double-digit declines on the platform, including the recently skyrocketing XRP, as well as tokens such as Shiba Inu and Dogecoin.
Whales are picking up chips at low prices.
This event created arbitrage opportunities for savvy traders.
Unlike in previous 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 is the exact opposite.
According to Lookonchain, as the market in South Korea declined, many whales transferred large amounts of USDT to Upbit exchange to buy tokens at a discount.
Data shows that within an hour after the South Korean president announced the emergency state of emergency, large traders transferred over $163 million in 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 bottom fishers, Upbit announced that its application and open API services were suspended and experienced delays due to increased traffic.
Local time on the 4th at dawn, Yoon Suk-yeol announced the lifting of the state of emergency, just over 6 hours after he announced its implementation the previous night. Bitcoin's price on Upbit has slightly rebounded, around $88,600 at the time of writing.
Bitwise senior investment strategist Juan Leon stated in a statement that the discount of Bitcoin on South Korean exchanges reflects the "entrapment" of liquidity within centralized venues. He noted that although Bitcoin is a decentralized asset traded around the clock, chaos can still occur when a "specific situation in a certain place" causes sudden restrictions.
XRP whale activity has surged to an all-time high.
According to Bitpush data, the price of XRP tokens skyrocketed fourfold in the past month, becoming the third largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization.
CryptoQuant data shows that XRP whale activity has reached an all-time high. CryptoQuant analyst Woominkyu pointed out that historically, significant surges in whale XRP trading activity are "closely related to XRP price peaks." These trades have recently surged, pushing the coin price towards a peak of around $2.6, indicating that whales may be "preparing for potential profit-taking or increased market activity."
Analysts believe that the momentum of XRP's price 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 5 companies have applied to list spot XRP exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in the United States, including Grayscale, WisdomTree, Bitwise, 21Shares, and Canary Capital.
