South Korean investors have been betting on a number of cryptoassets beyond the top two by market capitalization – Bitcoin ($BTC) and Ethereum ($ETH) – as their top holdings asl include Cardano ($ADA), $XRP, and the meme-inspired cryptocurrency Dogecoin ($DOGE).
According to a study conducted by various leading South Korean cryptocurrency trading platforms, residents in the country are mostly holding the flagship cryptocurrency, with a total of 128,828 BTC worth over $5 billion currently being held by South Koreans.
South Koreans’ second-largest holding comes as a surprise, however, as $XRP took second place. According to the study, South Korean residents currently hold nearly $4.8 billion worth of the cryptocurrency, which is ranked 7th by market capitalization.
Data from CryptoCompare shows the country’s fiat currency, the South Korean won, represents XRP’s second-largest trading volume, behind Tether’s USDT only. XRP is traded against the won mostly on Bithumb and Upbit.
As CryptoGlobe reported Ripple, a popular fintech firm and a major player in the $XRP market, has announced it has developed a new standard, called XLS-20, to “help developers build more advanced and innovative NFT applications” on top of the XRP Ledger. Analysts have predicted XRP’s price could undergo a “big run” as the U.S: dollar weakens.
Notably, South Koreans hold around $4.5 billion worth of Ethereum, and about $1 billion worth of its competitor Cardano ($ADA), which came in fourth as their largest holding. Behind ADA is the meme-inspired cryptocurrency Dogecoin, with South Koreans holding around $900 million worth of DOGE.
Cardano, it’s worth noting, has recently seen its developer Input Output increase the network’s block size by 10% from 80 KB to 88 KB per block as network load has been holding above the 80% mark for months. The move came in a bid to “increase throughput and DApp performance.”
The study’s data came from the region’s top four cryptocurrency trading platforms: Bithumb, Coinone, Upbitt, and Korbit. It found that last year, investors in the country traded over $7 trillion worth of cryptoassets.
The amount of BTC held by South Korean investors surpassed the value of Apple shares they owned, which stood at $5.48 billion. It fell short of the value of Tesla shares owned, however, which stood close to the $17 billion mark.
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The views and opinions expressed by the author, or any people mentioned in this article, are for informational purposes only, and they do not constitute financial, investment, or other advice. Investing in or trading cryptoassets comes with a risk of financial loss.
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