Author: Conflux

In South Korea, there is a widely circulated joke: "There are three things that a Korean cannot avoid in life: death, taxes, and chaebols." But if you look at the current young people and financial circle in South Korea, this statement might need a fourth word: leveraged stock trading.

In July, the South Korean stock market experienced severe fluctuations, directly causing over 1.2 million retail investor leveraged accounts to reach the "margin call line," with hundreds of thousands of young people watching their principal instantly go to zero. In South Korea, this behavior has a specific term—"빚투" (Bit-too, borrowing money to invest). To buy Nvidia, Tesla, or heavily invest in the domestic Samsung Electronics, countless young Koreans aged 20 to 30 engaged in extreme leverage pulls using "peer-to-peer lending + broker financing," pushing leverage to the limit.

However, if you think that leveraged stock trading is the ceiling of gambling behavior for Koreans, you are too naive. In South Korea, the craziness of the stock market is at most just an appetizer; the ultimate hell they are trapped in day and night, collectively going mad, is cryptocurrency.

As a country with a population of only over 50 million, South Korea not only frequently contributes astonishing crypto trading volumes that draw global attention but also nurtured a truly "giant" level exchange—Upbit.

Today, we will delve into Upbit's dominating status in South Korea and this group of "Korean ants" who are always in FOMO (fear of missing out).

Absolute Dominance of the Crypto Giant

If you have not been to South Korea, it is hard to imagine the national popularity of Upbit locally. On the subway in Seoul and in cafes in Gangnam, you can often catch glimpses of young people's phone screens flashing Upbit's iconic red-blue candlesticks (Note: In the South Korean stock market and crypto world, red represents rises and blue represents declines).

According to the latest data from mid-2026, among the five main compliance exchanges in South Korea—Upbit, Bithumb, Coinone, Korbit, and Gopax—Upbit's market share reaches a staggering 67.4%!

Notably, despite the recent "crypto winter" in the market, Upbit's market share not only did not decrease but actually increased. In an era where liquidity is king, there has been a distinct "concentration towards the top" effect. The second-place old exchange, Bithumb, although it has been trying to fight back with strategies like zero transaction fees, only captures about 27.1% of the pie. The market share gap between the two has widened to over 40%.

Why is it Upbit specifically?

• Strong backing and large traffic: Upbit was founded by the well-known South Korean fintech company Dunamu, which was early on linked to the "national-level" chat software KakaoTalk (similar to WeChat in China), strengthening its brand endorsement in the local market.
• Extremely smooth user experience: The app's UI design is highly technological and operates smoothly, making it extremely user-friendly for novices.
• Fiat deposits as easy as drinking water: Its deep binding with the pure online bank K-Bank makes the experience of fiat deposits and withdrawals for retail investors extremely smooth, building a strong moat.

Setting aside the "one strong and one weak" pattern between Upbit and Bithumb, the survival status of other exchanges in South Korea can only be described as a cruel tale of blood and tears—

The South Korean government implements extremely strict "real-name bank account" regulations on the crypto market, and there are strict limitations on contract leverage and other derivatives trading for compliant exchanges. In this "island market" where only spot trading is possible, liquidity is life. Retail investors instinctively flock to platforms with the best depth to avoid slippage during trading, leading to the strong becoming stronger.

The remaining Coinone, Korbit, and Gopax have long hovered with market shares in the single digits or even below one percent. Facing a significantly decreased active user ratio in the broader market environment, these small-to-medium platforms have had to undergo tough transformations to survive: some have begun to focus on customized services for institutions, some are seeking to marry traditional brokerages, and others are deeply restructuring through internal layoffs.

More than just a leader, more like an emotional indicator

Upbit's value is not just in its large market share but in its ability to nearly represent the direction of South Korean retail investors' risk preference. There is a distinct capital rotation between the stock market and the crypto world: when the stock market offers a stronger profit-making effect, funds tend to shift towards stocks; when the crypto circle warms up again, some funds will flow back into the crypto market.

This means Upbit acts more like an "emotion amplifier." When market risk preference rises, its trading volume and attention expand rapidly; when sentiment cools down, the trading volume quickly recedes.

Public reports indicate that in 2025, when the excitement of the South Korean crypto market waned, Upbit's daily trading volume also saw a steep decline, while the activity in the South Korean stock market notably increased, indicating a transfer of funds from the crypto world to the stock market.

In the short term, Upbit’s dominant position remains difficult to unsettle. As long as South Korean retail investors prefer high-volatility assets, as long as KRW trading remains the mainstream channel, and as long as liquidity and compliance advantages remain concentrated on a few platforms, Upbit will continue to be the most important platform in South Korea's crypto world.

However, from a medium-to-long-term perspective, it is not without variables. Regulatory changes, market cycles, and the reallocation of South Korean retail investors between stocks and crypto assets will all impact its trading activity.

In other words, Upbit's future is not determined in isolation but is closely tied to the overall sentiment of South Korean investors.

Better to face liquidation than to work?

Returning to the "빚투" (borrowing money to invest) phenomenon mentioned at the beginning. Why are young people in South Korea so aggressive and full of gambling spirit whether investing in US stocks or cryptocurrency? In the South Korean financial context, these retail investors are referred to as "ants" (개미), and the ants in the crypto market are particularly formidable.

All of this stems from the fact that this generation of South Korean youth faces extremely high youth unemployment rates, an intensely competitive job market (chaebols monopolize good jobs), and soaring housing prices in the Seoul metropolitan area. The traditional East Asian narrative of "working hard - buying a house - getting married" has already fractured here.

Since their meager monthly salary can never afford a house, they might as well borrow some money and dive into the crypto world. For them, highly volatile cryptocurrencies are almost the only "legal lottery" capable of achieving class mobility.

Additionally, due to South Korea's strict foreign exchange controls (capital cannot freely enter and leave for arbitrage), combined with the local fervent buying enthusiasm for cryptocurrency, the price of the same Bitcoin on South Korean exchanges often exceeds that on international platforms like Binance or Coinbase by several percentage points or even more than 20%. This extreme premium in a closed market is the most direct reflection of the intense thirst for capital within South Korea.

Getting liquidated in the stock market? No problem, in the crypto world you don’t even need to borrow for leverage. Unlike Western institutional funds which prefer Bitcoin (BTC), Korean ants have a strong preference for low market cap, high volatility Altcoins with narrative gimmicks. On Upbit, you can often see an obscure altcoin whose daily trading volume outstrips that of Bitcoin.

In summary, South Korean retail investors are not looking for a steady investment with an annual yield of 10%, but rather the extreme thrill of "a massive jump; either it leads to lavish escapades or tough labor."

South Koreans, relying on iced Americano to keep going, seem to be cutting back even on sleep. Even at 3 AM in Seoul, the trading board on Upbit remains actively traded. In any globally renowned crypto project, one cannot ignore the frenzied calls from the South Korean community for trading.

Conclusion

In South Korea, cryptocurrencies and leveraged stock trading are no longer just financial assets or investment actions; they resemble a social movement carrying the despair, anxiety, and desires of the youth.

Upbit's rise to dominance in this market is not only due to its provision of high-quality trading infrastructure but also because it perfectly fulfills an entire generation's extreme longing for "getting rich" and "changing their destiny."

For global crypto projects, "listing on Upbit with KRW trading pairs" remains one of the most valuable pieces of good news in the crypto world. Because that means your token will be directly facing the most formidable, most reckless "Korean ants" on the planet.

Times are changing, and the impending regulatory measures on Korean crypto (such as the capital gains tax on crypto in 2027) will soon take effect, but as long as the desire to disrupt class solidification remains, the red and blue intertwined K-line in Korea will continue to dance wildly.

*This content is for reference only and does not constitute any investment advice. The market carries risks, and investments should be made cautiously.

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