As the domestic virtual asset market continues to slump, overseas remittances through domestic exchanges are maintaining the level of last year when transactions were active. Since trading of coins listed on domestic exchanges has been extremely sluggish this year, it can be interpreted that funds are flowing out to overseas exchanges where investment methods are diverse and free. Some are pointing out that domestic coin exchanges are being reduced to gateways for overseas investment.
The amount of virtual assets remitted overseas by domestic coin investors in the first half of this year was found to be approximately 20 trillion won. It is similar to the second half of last year. This is in contrast to the numerous cases of coins newly listed on domestic exchanges with a daily trading volume of less than 100 million won. In the industry, it is believed that if the total daily trading volume is less than 100 million won, smooth trading is not taking place. Even if the total trading volume is 100 million, the amount of buying and selling at one time is much less than that.
According to data submitted by People Power Party lawmaker Kim Hee-gon’s office on the 22nd from the five major domestic exchanges (Upbit, Bithumb, Coinone, Korbit, and Gopax), the amount of virtual assets sent by domestic investors to overseas operators, including overseas exchanges, in the first half of this year was It reached KRW 19.6947 trillion (for one-time remittance of KRW 1 million or more). The exchange with the largest overseas remittance volume was Upbit, which accounted for more than 80% of the domestic virtual asset trading volume share. In the first half of the year, 15.5798 trillion won worth of virtual assets went overseas through Upbit alone. It accounts for 79.1% of the total overseas remittances of the five major exchanges. Upbit was followed by Bithumb with KRW 3.3989 trillion, Coinone with KRW 639.5 billion, Korbit with KRW 64.1 billion, and Gopax with KRW 12.3 billion.
The scale of overseas remittances in the first half of this year is almost similar to the second half of last year. According to the Financial Intelligence Unit ( FIU )’s ‘Survey of Virtual Asset Businesses in the Second Half of 2022’, the amount transferred from domestic traders to overseas businesses in the second half of last year was 19.9 trillion won.
In particular, it is noticeable that the number of remittances increased rapidly in the first half of this year. In the second half of last year, there were only 880,000 cases, but in the first half of this year, it increased by 25% to 1.1 million cases. The size of remittances per case was 17.8 million won, a 21.3% decrease compared to the second half of last year (22.61 million won). Coinone had the largest remittance amount per transaction by exchange, at 25.7 million won. Upbit followed with 18.48 million won, followed by Korbit with 15.01 million won, Bithumb with 14.69 million won, and Gopax with 4.43 million won.
The decline in remittances is believed to be due to a significant drop in virtual asset prices. In comparison, the significant increase in the number of remittances appears to be due to the frequent use of overseas exchanges that allow ‘short selling’ to make profits even in bear markets토토사이트.
While overseas remittances have increased significantly, domestic exchanges are being ignored by investors. As a result of Maeil Business Newspaper’s analysis of newly listed coins in the second half of the year on the five major domestic exchanges, 54 of the 76 coins had a daily trading volume of less than 100 million won, which is difficult to consider as a smooth transaction. Looking at the number of newly listed coins with daily transactions of less than 100 million won by exchange, Coinone was 32 out of 33, Bithumb was 14 out of 30, Upbit was 1 out of 5, and Cofax was 5 out of 5.
When calculating fees, the numbers are even more dire. Although Bithumb is implementing a partial fee-free policy, looking at the fee income earned by the five major exchanges in the last 24 hours (21st to 22nd) from coins newly listed in the second half of the year, Upbit is 133.91 million won, Bithumb 85.13 million won, and Coinone. It costs only 1.31 million won, Gopax 287,000 won, and Korbit 46,000 won. Coins with a daily trading volume of less than 1 million won included 22 Coinone, 2 Bithumb, 2 Gopax, and 1 Korbit.
In the virtual asset industry, it is said that as the business method of domestic exchanges targeting individual investors is difficult to keep up with overseas exchanges, investors are using domestic virtual asset exchanges only as a stepping stone to transfer funds overseas. An official at a domestic exchange said, “Trading does not occur on domestic virtual asset exchanges unless there are sharp fluctuations such as ‘listing beam’ and ‘listing beam’ that are of interest to individual investors.” He added, “Virtual asset investors are even disappointed with that, so they do not even report domestic business.” “It is analyzed that they are focusing on risky forms of investment, such as jumping into overseas exchanges and engaging in leveraged trading,” he said.
In fact, as the virtual asset market continued to weaken, futures trading volume began to surpass spot trading volume in the global virtual asset market starting last March. According to The Block, the total global spot trading volume last month was 464 trillion won, while futures trading volume reached 631 trillion won. However, domestic exchanges cannot provide futures services.
There is also an analysis that the investment landscape needs to change, such as allowing the entry of institutional investors or derivatives trading. Kim Hee-gon, a member of the People Power Party, said, “While the size of the virtual asset market is expanding globally, the domestic virtual asset market is shrinking due to regulations by financial authorities.” He added, “Through regulatory improvements such as allowing investment by corporate and institutional investors, “There is a need to revitalize the won market,” he said.