This was the first time in 50 years and was due to rising tensions with North Korea and domestic unrest. However the parliament opposed it and it was revoked. This short and crazy announcement sent shockwaves throughout the country including the crypto market.
Over 15% of South Korea’s 51.7M population is registered on crypto exchanges, that’s a high adoption rate. When martial law was declared, Bitcoin on Upbit went down 30% and reached $71,814.99, XRP and other major altcoins also plummeted.
But the market recovered just as fast, thanks to crypto whales and optimistic investors.
Local exchanges Upbit and Bithumb saw all time high trading volume after the announcement. 24 hour trading volume reached $34.2B, double of the previous day’s $18B. Upbit alone accounted for $27.25B of this volume, more than the total trading volume of the local stock market. According to local media, this is the highest single day crypto trading volume in 2024.
This was due to speculative buying during the dip as investors saw the short lived crash as an opportunity. It also shows the impact of South Korea on global crypto market as their trading activities contributed 10% to the global crypto trading volume which reached $298.29B.
