Retail trading volumes for crypto assets in South Korea surged to $18 billion in the last 24 hours, outperforming the country’s stock market by 22%, according to 10x Research.
In a Dec. 2 report, 10x Research founder Markus Thielen said retail crypto trading volumes reached their second-highest level of the year on Dec. 2, with South Korean traders in a frenzy over a series of “high momentum” altcoins.
Ripple’s XRP token (XRP) witnessed over $6.3 billion in volume on the day in South Korea. Dogecoin (DOGE) came in second at $1.6 billion, followed by Stellar (XLM) at $1.3 billion, Ethereum Name Service (ENS) at $900 million and Hedera (HBAR) at $800 million.
“These high-momentum cryptocurrencies are being driven predominantly by retail traders, capitalizing on and reinforcing momentum-driven trends.”
XRP, ENS, and HBAR — which belong to a category of older tokens colloquially called “dino coins” by crypto natives — have all been major outperformers when compared with the rest of the crypto market, each respectively gaining 90%, 73%, and 168% in the last week.
Thielen noted that Bitcoin’s funding rate — an indicator of perps activity — was “relatively mild” at just 15% on an annualized basis.
Bitcoin’s funding rate is sitting at a “mild” 15% while interest in altcoins skyrockets. Source: 10x Research
When combined with a recent uptick in trading activity for altcoins, Thielen said this was a surefire sign that an “altseason” is underway.
Related: Analyst warns of ‘leverage driven’ XRP pump as token flips Tether
“We are seeing one of the largest divergences recorded between a relatively mild Bitcoin funding rate at 15% annualized while retail trading volumes in Korea have ramped up to $18bn.”
“The action is clearly in the altcoin market and everybody needs to have a strategy to catch these waves but still remain disciplined,” he added.
Ripple’s XRP has been staging a historic rally over the last month, surging from a price of $0.50 to a new yearly high of $2.80 on Dec. 2, per TradingView data.
XRP has rallied over 436% in the last month. Source: TradingView
The startling run-up has seen the token eclipse both Solana (SOL) and Tether (USDT) in terms of market cap, making it the third-largest crypto asset by total value at the time of publication.
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