Due to the impact of the martial law turmoil in South Korea, the Korean won and Korean stocks plummeted, and the BTC price on South Korea's largest crypto exchange Upbit briefly spiked to $61,600. Upbit data showed that following the martial law news, the exchange rate of Bitcoin against the Korean won (KRW) plummeted from 130 million KRW to 93.6 million KRW, a drop of nearly 33%. Major altcoins also saw double-digit declines on the platform, including the recently surging XRP, as well as tokens like Shiba Inu and Dogecoin.
Whales pick up chips at low prices
This event has 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 sell it in South Korea at a 'kimchi premium,' this time the situation is the exact opposite.
According to Lookonchain, as the South Korean market fell, many whales transferred large amounts of USDT to Upbit to buy tokens at discounted prices.
Data shows that within one hour after the South Korean president announced the emergency martial law, 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 delayed due to increased traffic.
In the early morning of the 4th local time, Yoon Suk-yeol announced the lifting of the martial law, just over 6 hours after he announced its implementation the previous evening. The price of Bitcoin on Upbit has slightly rebounded, hovering around $88,600 at the time of publication.
Juan Leon, a senior investment strategist at Bitwise, stated in a statement that the discount of Bitcoin on South Korean exchanges reflects the 'bottleneck' of liquidity within centralized venues. He noted that although Bitcoin is a decentralized asset traded around the clock, chaos can still arise when 'special circumstances in a certain place' create sudden restrictions.
XRP whale activity surged to an all-time high
According to Bitpush data, the price of XRP tokens surged fourfold in the past month, making it the third-largest crypto asset by market capitalization.
CryptoQuant data shows that XRP whale activity has reached an all-time high. CryptoQuant analyst Woominkyu pointed out that historically, the significant surge in whale XRP trading activity is 'closely related to peaks in XRP prices.' These transactions have recently surged, pushing the coin price to 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 shifts in the SEC leadership towards crypto-friendly policies, 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.
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