In the first quarter of 2025 cryptocurrency traders of South Korea have reportedly sent tokens and coins with hundreds of millions to offshore exchanges, the data of massive outflow has been reported by known exchanges in the nation including Coinone, Cobbit, Gopax, Upbit and Bithumb.
From $40.6 billion outflow around 47.3% was in stablecoins like Tether (USDT), USDC and other stablecoin that have been backed by the U.S dollars. The ongoing outflow indicates the shifting interest of regional users and traders towards offshore exchanges that offer a better price, and enable hassle free trading without any harsh regulations.
Stablecoin usage remains at peak in South Korea
The report by Byung-duk further notes that usage of stablecoins like USDT and USDC remains at peak as these stablecoins are majorly used to execute trades on renowned international exchanges such as Binance and Bybit.
However in March this year the pace of stablecoin outflow remained slow as the market moved quite slow without any major bullish events, yet the crypto adoption in SK has continued to grow and roughly 32% uses digital assets.
It is worth noting that 16.29 million people in South Korea had a crypto account, showing a strong and steady growth in the overall user base. Out of 2,047 public officials who submitted asset reports this year, 411 of them have revealed holdings of cryptocurrencies.
However, some of the officials holding crypto are reported to be holding powerful and influential positions in South Korea.
Crypto market price updates
As of writing, the cryptocurrency market capitalization was $3.09 trillion with an intraday surge of 3.12%, and the trading volume is $116.32 billion with a surge of 42.46%. At the same time, the crypto fear and greed index was at 53, indicating neutrality in the market sentiment.
Bitcoin has steadily neared $100,000, and until publishing, it was at $99,448 with a growth of 2.50% in the 24-hour time frame and 3.29% has been noted in the weekly time frame.
On the other hand, Ethereum also seems to be approaching the mark of $2,000, but with the surge of 7.11% intraday it has reached $1,963.09.
According to data from CoinMarketCap, the intraday gainers list has been ruled by Pudgy Penguins, EOS, Virtual Protocol, Ethena, Pepe, Dogwifhat, Bitcoin Cash, Official Trump, SUI, and Ethereum Name Service.
Yet the loser list has been topped by Four, DeXe, Tether Gold, Pax Gold, PayPal USD, USDC, and DAI. It is crucial to note that with Bitcoin approaching $100k, that has pushed memecoin community has reached new heights, and the market cap has reached $57.18 billion, and the trading volume has reached $6.92 billion with a surge of 39.59%.
