Korean Virtual Asset Market Volume Increased

​As interest in the virtual asset market, such as the surge in bitcoin this year, increased rapidly, the amount of daily virtual asset transactions in Korea exceeded 8 trillion won. This is an increase of more than eight times from the average daily transaction amount of 9,759 billion won last year.

This is at least three times more than in late 2017 and early 2018, when the domestic virtual asset trading fever blew up, and it can be interpreted as setting an unprecedented record in the domestic virtual asset investment fever in 2021.

On the 8th, the Democratic Party's Office of Representative Kim Byeong-wook surveyed the status of virtual asset transactions on the four major domestic virtual asset exchanges such as Bithumb, Upbit, Coinone, and Korbit. Virtual asset transaction amount recorded 445 trillion won. Last year, the total amount of transactions for one year was 356 trillion won, but this year, the amount of transactions for less than two months exceeded the total amount of transactions for one year last year.

According to the data on the volume of virtual asset transactions collected by Congressman Kim at each virtual asset exchange, the amount of virtual asset transactions, which had declined every year since 2018, jumped in quantum in 2021.

The total transaction value of virtual assets increased from 619 trillion won in 2017 to 936 trillion won in 2018, and then halved to 487 trillion won in 2019. The total transaction value of virtual assets, which fell to 356 trillion won the following year, soared to 445 trillion won by February this year.

The average daily trading value also showed a similar pattern. Compared to 2018, when an average of 2,565 billion won was traded per day, the average daily transaction amount this year recorded 7.94 trillion won, more than tripled in three years.

An official from a virtual asset exchange supported this by saying, "We are enjoying an unprecedented boom, with the total daily transaction value of major domestic virtual asset exchanges reaching 20 trillion won at the beginning of this year."

On the other hand, according to the results of the domestic virtual asset market monitoring results of Representative Kim's, the number of virtual asset investors this year increased from the previous year, but it was low compared to the end of 2017 to the beginning of 2018. Until February 18, there were 1.59 million members who made transactions at least once on the four major virtual asset exchanges in Korea, 450,000 fewer than 2,400,000 in 2018, and nearly 400,000 from last year's 1.2 million.

​​It is noteworthy how long the preference for virtual asset trading will continue in Korea.