XRP Takes the Lead as South Korea Most Popular Altcoin

The asset has continued to attract immense attention from South Korean investors throughout this year.

XRP remains a favorite of the majority of crypto proponents across the globe, but recent trends suggest that South Korean investors have been more drawn to the asset. As a result, XRP has secured a comfortable position as the most popular asset in South Korea, based on trade volume this year.

This is according to data from Kaiko, a crypto market intelligence provider. Kaiko recently carried out an analysis of the top altcoins in the crypto markets based on their trading volumes since the beginning of 2023. The report took into account volumes across different exchanges, including Korea’s four largest exchanges and Coinbase.

Data from the Kaiko report shows that XRP’s trade volume on the four largest exchanges in South Korea has surged dramatically to an estimate of $16 billion since the start of the year. The figure represents more than three times the volume of Nano (XNO) and Dogecoin (DOGE) which respectively secure second and third positions.

In fact, XRP’s trade volume on these exchanges is greater than the combined volume of the three assets that secure the second to the fourth positions. For context, the four biggest exchanges in South Korea are UpBit, Bithumb, Coinone and GOPAX. 

Recall that XRP overtook Bitcoin in trade volume on these exchanges last month. The asset saw a 24-hour volume of over half a billion dollars on UpBit alone. This dramatic surge in XRP trade volume came on the heels of the asset’s price rally that began on March 21. The rally pumped an immense amount of demand into XRP. 

Moreover, in a previous report, Kaiko asserted that the XRP rally was majorly driven by demand witnessed among Korean investors. However, the market data provider revealed that this demand came mostly from retail investors in South Korea, and not institutions. 

Whale Accumulation Gains Steam

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Besides the growing interest among Korean investors, whales across numerous jurisdictions have continued to accumulate XRP, especially in anticipation of a favorable ruling in the Ripple vs. SEC case. WhaleStats data shows that the top 100 whales on the Binance Smart Chain hold over 52.6 million XRP tokens valued at an estimate of $26.87 million. 

Furthermore, a chart from CoinMetrics revealed that addresses holding at least 10,000 XRP tokens have more than doubled in number since the SEC lawsuit began, increasing from a figure below 120K in December 2020 to over 260K at present. Meanwhile, XRP is currently trading for $0.5168 as of press time, up 0.22% in the past 24 hours.

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