S.Korea’s crypto market rebounds in H1 but down 48.5% from 2021 close

South Korea’s cryptocurrency market has bounced back during the first half of this year but is still almost 50% below its value at the end of 2021, according to the Korea Financial Intelligence Unit (KOFIU), a government agency that oversees the nation’s anti-money laundering regime.

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Fast Facts

• The South Korean crypto market capitalization rose from January to June this year, rising 46% to reach a valuation of 28.4 trillion won (US$21.08 billion), according to a KOFIU study released Tuesday.
• However, it is still down 48.5% from 2021’s close, just before the start of the bear market, when the local crypto market was valued at 55.4 trillion won (US$40.9 billion).

• The intelligence unit examined 26 cryptocurrency exchanges and trading firms and nine wallet and custody providers, totaling 35 local businesses.
• The average daily trading volume of the surveyed exchanges was 2.9 trillion won (US$2.19 billion) in the first half, a 1.3% decrease from 2.94 trillion won (US$2.17 billion) in the latter half of 2022.
• Among surveyed exchanges, 10 of them said they were facing difficulties in maintaining operations due to a lack of transaction fees.

• The estimated number of crypto traders dropped 3% to 6.06 million from the previous period’s 6.27 million traders.

• The ongoing crypto bear market saw the least amount of funds raised a quarter by crypto firms in three years at US$2.1 billion throughout Q3, causing financial hardships for companies.

• Crypto intelligence firm Chanalysis and hardware wallet developer Ledger were among the latest to announce layoffs.

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