bitseven.com - After a quiet year to date, the Korean Won is coming back to crypto markets in a big way.
The so-called "kim chi premium," which refers to the phenomenon of higher cryptocurrency prices on Korean exchanges as seen in the 2017 surge, has not returned but Korean won trades certainly have. It's been relatively quiet throughout 2018, but October has seen the Korean won come back in a big way.
One theory is that this reflects ongoing turbulence in traditional markets, and a shifting of more assets to the now comparatively reliable-looking cryptocurrency markets. Last week, for example, the DOW dropped 3% and saw quite wild swings day to day, while bitcoin ended the week up 1%.
At the same time, however, Japanese yen trading volume has been declining as the won gains steam, which might suggest that there are factors beyond a straightforward shifting of capital from traditional to crypto markets.
But this might be explained by a recent spate of high-profile heists from Japanese cryptocurrency exchanges though. The world's largest cryptocurrency heist to date saw over $500 million in crypto go missing from Japan's CoinCheck exchange. And more recently around 20 September - right as the yen trading volume started disappearing - $60 million disappeared from Japan's Zaif exchange. It's possible that these have dissuaded crypto traders in Japan, or even see some start using the won out of Korean exchanges instead.
And there might not be any new developments in Korea which could account for the sudden shift. On the contrary, the industry recently received a regulatory blow when it emerged that Korea's cryptocurrency exchanges would not be continue to be afforded the same venture firm tax benefits as other local startups, and as of the end of the year would lose these advantages.
bitseven.comBitcoin leveraged trade at 100x leverage maximum, 100% profit at 1% price raise
Make a profit whether the bitcoin price rises or falls
BITCOIN LEVERAGE TRADING YOU CAN TRUST