A brand new report reveals that large-scale traders, labeled as “whales,” account for over 90% of buying and selling on South Korea’s centralized exchanges.
Whereas on-chain information has lengthy advised that crypto whales drive the DeFi market, analysts have now launched the primary goal statistics. These statistics make clear the size and patterns of whale traders on centralized exchanges.
Whales Dominate the Market in South Korea
The workplace of lawmaker Lee Heon-seung of the Individuals Energy Get together launched the info on Tuesday. The report defines the highest 10% of customers on every alternate as “whale traders.” It then measures their share of the full buying and selling quantity as “buying and selling focus.”
The unique supply of the info is the Monetary Supervisory Service (FSS) of South Korea.
In response to the info, Bithumb had the very best buying and selling focus of whale traders among the many 5 largest home exchanges supporting Korean Received buying and selling.
Its focus was 97.97% within the first half of the yr. This implies the underside 90% of customers on the alternate accounted for simply 2.03% of the full buying and selling quantity.
The highest exchanges by buying and selling focus had been GOPAX (97.95%), Coinone (97.54%), Korbit (97.52%), and Upbit (89.36%). By way of buying and selling quantity, Upbit recorded the very best at ₩1,488.6 trillion, adopted by Bithumb at ₩589 trillion. Coinone, Korbit, and Gopax ranked third by means of fifth, respectively.
Focus Rises with Market Cap
The report additionally discovered that buying and selling focus was larger for large-cap belongings. Even smaller-cap cryptocurrencies, nonetheless, nonetheless confirmed a focus of over 60%.
A month-to-month evaluation of the ten lowest market-cap belongings from January 2023 to June 2025 revealed that Bithumb had the very best buying and selling focus at 83.8%. In distinction, Upbit had the bottom at 66.91%.
For a very long time, new cryptocurrency listings on Korean exchanges have been related to a “itemizing impact.” This has brought on a major worth improve. Itemizing a venture on a significant Korean alternate has usually been thought of a blessing.
Whereas individuals extensively noticed this as a logo of the collective shopping for energy of Korean traders, the info counsel it could have been an irregular phenomenon. This phenomenon was doubtless pushed by a small variety of whale traders.
A Shifting Market
Trade specialists attribute the excessive focus to the distinctive traits of the Korean crypto market. On this market, centralized exchanges solely enable spot buying and selling, and the vast majority of customers are retail traders.
The South Korean Monetary Companies Fee plans to permit crypto alternate accounts for as much as 3,500 establishments. This transformation will apply to skilled traders registered within the second half of this yr.
It stays to be seen whether or not Korea will proceed to be thought to be a “holy land for crypto listings” after this transformation.
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