Tell a ghost story, even Koreans are not really trading cryptocurrencies anymore

Written by｜Liam, Deep Tide TechFlow

If there were a contest for the world's most enthusiastic cryptocurrency traders, South Koreans would certainly be on the list.

South Korea has long been one of the most fervent countries for cryptocurrency globally, even coining a term: "Kimchi Premium," where South Korean traders once paid up to 10% more for Bitcoin than the global price.

But by 2025, the tide has turned.

The trading volume on South Korea's largest cryptocurrency exchange, Upbit, has plummeted by 80% compared to the same period last year, and the activity of the Bitcoin-KRW trading pair is far less vibrant than in previous years; instead, the South Korean stock market is booming, with the KOSPI index soaring over 70% this year, continuously hitting historical highs.

On Kakao Talk and Naver forums, retail investors who once discussed altcoins daily are now talking about "AI semiconductor concept stocks."

The ghost stories of the crypto world have arrived, and even South Koreans are trading cryptocurrencies less frequently.

Trading Volume Halved, South Koreans Are No Longer Trading Cryptos

In recent years, South Korea has been a battleground for the global cryptocurrency market.

For exchanges and project teams, this place has high-net-worth quality clients; to put it simply, South Koreans are often the main buyers of altcoins.

Media and films are filled with stories of South Koreans trading cryptocurrencies all night, getting rich, and then facing liquidation.

So when someone tells you that retail investors in this "crypto trading nation" are now trading cryptocurrencies less frequently, you might find it absurd.

But data does not lie.

The trading volume on South Korea's largest exchange, Upbit, has collapsed.

In November 2025, Upbit's average daily trading volume was only $1.78 billion, a staggering drop of 80% from $9 billion in December 2024, and it has been declining for four consecutive months.

Upbit's historical peak occurred on December 3, 2024, the night of South Korea's martial law, with a trading volume of $27.45 billion, ten times the usual amount.

But that night of frenzy became the peak, and the market quickly cooled down, with trading volume collapsing sharply.

More notably, the volatility of trading volume has also significantly decreased.

During the frenzy at the end of 2024, daily trading volumes often fluctuated wildly between $5 billion and $27 billion; however, entering 2025, most of the time, trading volumes have stabilized in the range of $2 billion to $4 billion, with much narrower fluctuations.

The fate of South Korea's second-largest exchange, Bithumb, is similar.

At the end of 2024 (December), Bithumb's average daily trading volume was about $2.45 billion, but by November 2025, it had dropped to around $890 million, an overall decrease of about 69%, with liquidity loss nearing two-thirds.

The two largest domestic exchanges in South Korea (Upbit and Bithumb) have both fallen into a "volume recession" during the same period, which not only indicates a cooling of trading but also a comprehensive retreat of retail investor sentiment in South Korea.

Search data confirms this; in South Korea's Google search trends, the latest search index for Bitcoin is 44, down 66% from the peak of 100 at the end of 2024.

Korean Stock Market Bull Run

So, where has all the money gone? The answer is: the stock market.

This year's South Korean stock market can be likened to a reincarnation of the 2017 Bitcoin bull market, an epic bull run.

The benchmark KOSPI index set 17 intraday historical highs in October alone, breaking through the 4200-point mark, and in just October, it rose nearly 21%, marking the best single month since 2001.

From the beginning of the year to now, the KOSPI index has surged over 72%, leading all asset classes.

In October, the KOSPI's average daily trading volume reached 16.6 trillion KRW (about $11.5 billion), with a single-day high of 18.9 trillion KRW, a 44% increase from September, causing brokerage apps to lag at times.

This is just the index; individual stocks are even crazier.

Samsung Electronics has risen 100% since the beginning of the year; memory giant SK Hynix's stock price has increased by 70% this quarter and skyrocketed 240% year-to-date, with the two companies averaging a daily trading volume of 4.59 trillion KRW, accounting for 28% of the entire market.

The market's heat is so high that even the exchanges can't ignore it; South Korean exchanges announced on Monday evening that they had issued an "investment caution" notice for SK Hynix stocks, citing the stock's rapid rise, which caused SK Hynix's stock price to plummet on Tuesday.

AI Has Become "National Faith"

Once, the South Korean stock market was stagnant, showing little growth for over a decade, and local media frequently sang its demise, claiming "the South Korean stock market has no future," which led many South Korean investors to trade cryptocurrencies or invest in U.S. stocks. Why has the South Korean stock market turned around in 2025?

The recent surge in the South Korean stock market appears to be driven by "retail investors going crazy," but the underlying logic is exceptionally clear:

Global AI Wave + Policy Push + Domestic Capital Inflow.

Everyone knows that the spark for this round of market activity comes from AI.

ChatGPT has ignited the second season of the global tech bubble, and South Korea just happens to be in the "ammunition depot" position of the supply chain.

South Korea is a leading country in global memory chips, with SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics almost monopolizing the high-bandwidth memory (HBM) market, which is the most critical material for training AI large models.

This means that whenever NVIDIA and AMD see an increase in GPU shipments, the profit curves of South Korean companies will rise in tandem.

At the end of October, SK Hynix released its financial report, showing third-quarter revenue of $17.1 billion and operating profit of $8 billion, both up 62% year-on-year, setting historical highs.

More critically, SK Hynix has locked in customer demand for all DRAM and NAND production capacity through 2026, leading to supply shortages.

Thus, South Koreans have realized:

AI is America's narrative, but the money is being made in South Korea.

If NVIDIA is the soul of the U.S. stock market, South Korean retail investors have found their faith in SK Hynix.

From the crypto world to the stock market, they are still chasing that "tenfold dream," but buying Samsung or SK also allows them to wear the crown of "patriotism."

Additionally, do not overlook a crucial background: the South Korean government is actively trying to rescue the stock market.

For a long time, South Korean stocks have suffered from what is known as the "Korea Discount."

Family conglomerate monopolies, chaotic corporate governance, and low shareholder returns… have led to South Korean companies being generally undervalued, even Samsung Electronics has long been valued below its global peers, and SK Hynix's PE remains only 14 after a 240% rise.

After Yoon Suk-yeol's government took office, it launched a reform plan known as the "Korean version of the shareholder value revolution":

Promoting companies to increase dividends and buy back stocks;

Cracking down on cross-shareholding among conglomerates;

Lowering capital gains taxes and encouraging pension funds and retail investors to increase local allocations.

This reform has been referred to by the media as "a national action to free Korea from the discount."

As a result, foreign capital has begun to flow back, and local institutions and retail investors are also "coming home to buy stocks."

Of course, another reality is that there are few places for money to go.

The South Korean real estate market has cooled during the high-interest rate cycle, U.S. stock valuations are high, and the crypto market can only passively absorb losses.

Investors need a new gambling table, and the stock market just happens to provide a legal betting ground.

Data from the Bank of Korea shows that more than 5 million new securities accounts were opened by local retail investors in the first half of this year, and the download volume of brokerage apps has surged.

The speed of this capital inflow into KOSPI is faster than the rush of retail investors into the crypto market in 2021.

At the same time, South Korean pension funds and insurance capital are also increasing their holdings in local tech stocks.

From the government to institutions to retail investors, everyone is rushing into the stock market; you could even say this is a "national-level bull market."

Speculation Never Sleeps

Unlike the crypto market, which relies on "emotion" to drive prices, this time, the Korean stock market's "bull" at least has some performance support.

Finally, it must be acknowledged that:

This stock market bull run is essentially a nationwide "emotional resonance."

South Koreans have not changed; they have just switched gambling tables. They not only gamble but also leverage.

According to Bloomberg reports, South Korean retail investors are significantly increasing their leverage, leading to a doubling of margin loan balances within five years, and they are pouring into high-leverage and inverse ETFs.

According to data from Gelonghui, in 2025, leveraged funds held by South Korean retail investors accounted for 28.7% of total holdings, an increase of 9% from last year; the holdings of 3x leveraged products rose from 5.1% to 12.8%, with the leverage usage rate among young people aged 25 to 35 at 41.2%.

This generation of retail investors comes with a "go all in" gene.

However, when South Korean retail investors collectively rush to the stock market, the question arises:

"If South Koreans are no longer trading cryptocurrencies, who will take over the altcoins?"

In recent years, the South Korean market has often been the last buyer of altcoins.

From Dogecoin to PEPE, from LUNA to XRP, almost every round of crazy bull markets has seen the presence of South Korean retail investors.

They represent the "ultimate emotional indicator" of the global crypto market; as long as South Korea is still buying, the bubble has not peaked.

But now, with the trading volumes of Upbit and Bithumb both plummeting, the crypto world has lost its last believers and thus its greatest fuel.

Altcoins have no one to take over.

Perhaps we will have to wait until the heat of this global AI stock market fades or until the crypto world can tell a sufficiently compelling story again.

At that time, the sleeping gamblers will be awakened and return to the blockchain to continue betting.

After all, the gamblers are still there; they have just changed casinos.