South Korea’s won accounts for 30% of global crypto trades

Won-denominated trades represented roughly 30% of global spot cryptocurrency volume in 2026, with South Korea producing about $26 billion in average weekly turnover, according to Kaiko.

Most activity in the country is concentrated on two domestic exchanges, Upbit and Bithumb, which handled the bulk of Korea’s weekly turnover from 2024 through 2026.

About 85% of weekly Korean trades flow into tokens other than Bitcoin, reflecting strong retail demand for higher-volatility altcoins.

Despite the headline volume, Korean order books are thinner than Japan’s. Upbit’s market depth measures about $1 million to $1.2 million, while Tokyo-based Bitflyer shows roughly $3.5 million. Yen-denominated trading in Japan runs about $2 billion to $3 billion monthly across four venues.

The crypto activity has coincided with gains in Korean technology equities. The iShares MSCI South Korea ETF (EWY) returned more than 37% year-to-date through March 11, 2026. Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix together accounted for about 45% of the ETF’s holdings.

Options positioning has risen sharply. Call open interest on EWY reached about $5.5 billion in notional value, the highest level on record and above prior peaks in 2015 and 2021.

An analyst tracking options flows observed: ‘When call open interest explodes like this, traders are making large leveraged bets that a stock is about to move higher. Samsung and SK Hynix account for 45% of EWY.’

The equity rally and options positioning are linked to demand for high-bandwidth memory, or HBM, the chip used in AI training systems. Samsung and SK Hynix are the main global suppliers of HBM; orders for those firms have increased with data center expansions tied to AI investment.

The AI infrastructure buildout has also affected energy markets. Carbon allowances under the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative rose 31% over a recent week to $47 per metric ton, a four-year high that briefly exceeded California’s $44 record from 2024. Virginia plans to reenter RGGI in July; the state hosts a concentration of data centers.

Upcoming corporate reports and trading data will provide further information. Quarterly results from Samsung and SK Hynix in Q2 2026 and continued turnover on Upbit and Bithumb will offer near-term data points for market participants.