Political black swan, it comes just like that.
Affected by the turmoil of the Korean curfew, the Korean won and Korean stocks plummeted, and the price of BTC on South Korea's largest crypto exchange Upbit briefly spiked to $61,600. Upbit data showed that upon the announcement of the curfew, the exchange rate of Bitcoin against the Korean won (KRW) dropped from 130 million KRW to 93.6 million KRW, a decline of nearly 33%. Major altcoins also saw double-digit drops 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 savvy traders.
Unlike the past few years, when smart money could buy Bitcoin at lower prices in Hong Kong and North American exchanges and 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 large whales transferred large amounts of USDT to Upbit exchange to purchase tokens at a discount.
Data shows that within an hour after the South Korean president announced a 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 faced delays due to increased traffic.
In the early hours of the 4th local time, Yoon Suk-yeol announced the lifting of the curfew, just over 6 hours after he had previously announced its implementation. The price of Bitcoin on Upbit slightly rebounded, around $88,600 at the time of publication.
Bitwise senior investment strategist Juan Leon stated that the discount on Bitcoin in South Korean exchanges reflects the 'congestion' of liquidity within centralized venues. He mentioned that although Bitcoin is a decentralized asset traded around the clock, chaos can still occur when 'special circumstances in a particular place' create sudden restrictions.
XRP whale activity surged to an all-time high.
According to Bitpush data, the price of XRP tokens skyrocketed four times in the past month, becoming the third largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization.
CryptoQuant data shows that XRP whale activity reached an all-time high. CryptoQuant analyst Woominkyu pointed out that historically, the sharp surge in whale XRP trading activity 'is closely related to XRP price peaks'. These trades have recently surged, pushing the coin price towards around $2.6, indicating that whales may be 'preparing for potential profit-taking or increased market activity.'
Analysts believe that XRP's price momentum is driven by the launch of Ripple's stablecoin, potential changes in the SEC leadership favoring crypto, 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.
