Korean exchange Upbit share in the local market has exceeded 80%

What’s new? Korean crypto exchange Upbit thanks to a large number of coins available for trading took more than 80% of the local market and entered the top five largest exchanges in the world in terms of trading volume, Bloomberg reports, citing data from analytics platform CryptoQuant. The media notes that such a market share has not reached any other exchange in the regions-crypto hubs.

Material by Bloomberg

What else is known? Upbit, whose operator is the fintech company Dunamu, was launched in 2017. According to CCData, the exchange currently accounts for nearly 5% of the total crypto trading volume worldwide. In January 2021, the figure was only 1,4%.

Additionally, Upbit’s customers accounted for 18% of the total deposits of its main banking partner K-Bank last year, prompting some lawmakers to criticize it, calling the bank a private deposit box of the exchange.

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Through its partnership with K-Bank, Upbit became the first exchange to register with the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) in 2021. Local law requires exchanges to have banking partners to register with regulators.

A K-Bank representative declined to comment on the current share of deposits coming from Upbit but noted that the exchange generates only a small portion of revenue. He also emphasized that deposits from the exchange are not used for lending and can therefore be withdrawn at any time.

In addition to the bank, Upbit has partnered with leading local messenger Kakao, making it easier for new users to connect by allowing KakaoTalk and Upbit accounts to synchronize. In addition, Kakao’s investment arm owns almost 11% of the stock exchange operator Dunamu. Lee Sirgoo, who has been Dunamu’s chief executive for about six years, was also previously co-CEO of Kakao.

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Previously, Bithumb briefly overtook Upbit thanks to a zero-fee promotion that began last October. Its market share peaked at 39,2% in January, but has fallen by more than half since the promotion ended. Other platforms such as Korbit and Binance-backed Gopax have a share of less than 1%.