XRP has become the most traded cryptocurrency on South Korea’s two major exchanges, Upbit and Bithumb, according to CoinMarketCap. The combined trading volume of XRP on the two platforms in the past 24 hours exceeded $348 million when traded against the South Korean won.
This is almost $100 million more than the volume traded on Binance, the largest cryptocurrency exchange.
The XRP community noticed the anomaly and attributed it to increased interest from Korean investors. The surge in XRP’s price, which rose 9% at one point yesterday despite the overall bearish trend in the crypto market, further supports this. However, the reasons behind this behavior can only be speculated. It is believed that Korean investors saw an opportunity to profit from XRP after its price corrected from Tuesday’s 26% increase.
Ripple’s director of policy for the APAC region, Rahul Advani, has stated that 90% of Ripple’s business takes place outside of the US, with a significant portion of it happening in the Asia-Pacific region, which includes South Korea.
The demand for fast settlements and immediate access to funds has contributed to the growth of Ripple remittances, particularly the On-Demand Liquidity (ODL) service that uses XRP in the APAC area.
While XRP’s outperformance could continue for some time, there is also the possibility of a large-scale price correction. Nonetheless, the surge in XRP’s trading volume and price suggests that the cryptocurrency is gaining popularity among Korean investors.
