Assets listed on South Korean exchanges, including cryptocurrencies like bitcoin (BTC) and XRP, tanked on Tuesday night after President Yoon Suk Yeol declared martial law for the first time since 1979.

Traditional assets like equities, along with the Korean won (KRW), also cratered as tanks rolled down the streets of Seoul to protect government buildings.

As the KRW crashed to its weakest exchange rate against the dollar in 15 years, Seoul-based crypto exchanges Upbit and Bithumb struggled to remain operational. Outages affected users intermittently throughout the evening.

Trading volumes in BTC and XRP surged as prices collapsed, sending BTC tumbling 33% intraday on Upbit’s KRW-denominated trading pair.

XRP, the most popular asset traded on Upbit and Bithumb this week, fell an almost unbelievable 56% within 30 minutes on KRW pairs.

Read more: XRP craze in South Korea reminds traders of LUNA meltdown

A chaotic day for South Korean crypto traders

President Yoon’s order suspended all political activities for approximately three hours until opposition lawmakers raced into an emergency parliamentary session to vote on a lift of martial law.

After some clashes between police and protesters outside the National Assembly building, the finance ministry pledged “unlimited liquidity” to the market, leading the KRW and other Korean assets to pare their losses.

Samsung, the multi-hundred-billion-dollar electronics giant, fell by over 7% in London trading before regaining confidence after the finance ministry’s commitment. The KRW, which had traded nearly 3% lower in FX markets abroad, recouped half of those losses.

South Korea’s constitution demands the president comply with a National Assembly vote to lift martial law. According to a translated excerpt of the constitution, “When the National Assembly requests the lifting of martial law with the concurrent vote of a majority of the total members of the National Assembly, the President shall comply.”

Nevertheless, it’s unclear if President Yoon will actually follow the constitution.

During the late-night session, 190 parliamentarians voted unanimously to lift martial law. As of 1pm in New York (3am in Seoul), however, Yoon and his military hadn’t responded to the vote.

Globally, the price of BTC is relatively unchanged over the last 24 hours. The smaller XRP is still trading 6% lower in global averages.

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The post South Korea recovers from martial law and XRP, BTC flash crashes appeared first on Protos.

XRP Army, the social media fan club for all things Ripple, is alive and well in South Korea. Seoul-based crypto exchange Upbit reported that XRP traders on its platform are more active than traders of any other crypto asset this week — trading even more than bitcoin (BTC) and ether (ETH).

With over $6 billion in XRP traded, Ripple’s blockchain asset was responsible for over one-third of the crypto exchange’s $18 billion total on Monday.

That South Korea — a relatively small country — is leading a rally in a major cryptocurrency is unremarkable for veterans who have been around since 2017.

Back then, South Korea attracted international crypto arbitrageurs to its ‘kimchi premium,’ the phenomenon that for many months, saw BTC traded at a premium in the country versus exchanges in other regions.

On Monday, and for a few hours over the weekend, XRP denominated in South Korean won (KRW) traded at a slight, single-digit percentage premium versus the global average. Although its premium fluctuated intermittently and is back to parity as of publication time, high demand in South Korea indicated a possible resurgence of a kimchi premium that had not been seen for years.

For one glorious day, Upbit overtook Coinbase price leadership

On December 2, XRP’s price leadership passed from Coinbase to Upbit, and its price in KRW led Coinbase’s price for approximately a day.

XRP has been particularly volatile recently. After more than 400% gains within the last four weeks, some mispricings around the world are certainly to be expected.

On most other major exchanges like Coinbase or Binance, BTC typically has the highest trading volume. However, today, BTC is ranked tenth by trading volume on Seoul-based Upbit.

South Korean Ajummas win big on XRP

XRP’s $150 billion market capitalization ranks among the largest public companies with a primary stock listing in South Korea. Although smaller than Samsung, XRP is larger than Hyundai or Kia. (Of course, the XRP Ledger does not have a headquarters, and most of Ripple’s founders are from California, not Seoul.)

After XRP’s quadrupling over the past four weeks, South Korean media is praising a group known as the Ajummas. Ajumma is a kind of South Korean equivalent of the “Jones” surname that references a stereotypical couple living out a successful American Dream.

Unlike the quintessentially hard-working Mr. and Mrs. Jones, however, South Korean Ajummas are more akin to Japan’s Mrs. Watanabe, a group of stay-at-home housewives-turned-savvy investors.

In Japan, the Mrs. Watanabe class discovered low-cost funding for an immensely profitable yen-USD carry trade. In South Korea, Ajummas have apparently discovered crypto.

Supercharged with gains like XRP’s 400% in one month, Ajummas are outperforming their Japanese counterparts in spades.

XRP has quadrupled within a month and climbed crypto leaderboards with olympic speed, now ranking third worldwide. It has surpassed tether (USDT), Binance Coin (BNB), and Solana (SOL) in size, and is third only to BTC and ETH.

XRP Army tallies its winnings

News flow for XRP has been positive in recent weeks. XRP leaders recently launched a stablecoin and real-world asset (RWA) platform and Ripple secured a partial victory in its widely misinterpreted SEC lawsuit. Its founders also embraced lobbying and donated millions to political campaigns.

Large asset managers like WisdomTree, Bitwise, and Canary Capital have filed S-1 applications to list spot XRP ETFs on US exchanges. Those applications would have gone nowhere under SEC Chairman Gary Gensler but might have renewed hope under a new 2025 chair in Donald Trump’s incoming administration.

All these successes have paid off. South Koreans who bought XRP at any time in the past except the first week of 2018 are currently in profit.

Read more: SEC wants 2nd Circuit to overrule Ripple XRP decision

Skiddish Ajummas and newfound riches

Although South Korea might be celebrating the XRP bull market high, some cautious Ajummas are already locking in their profits.

Jaded by years of underperformance, South Koreans remain skeptical that XRP has long-term staying power. Some Koreans like Ryan Kim even allege that Ripple was partly responsible for a historical, doomed scheme called Ripple Market Korea. (The involvement of Ripple in this organization is indeterminate.)

Other Koreans remember what happened with Terra LUNA. South Korea turned founder Do Kwon into a national lesson when his crypto project imploded in 2022. Kwon lost investors like the Ajummas untold fortunes as his empire of tens of billions collapsed to near-$0. 

The LUNA collapse was a national story and devastated so many Ajummas that media reports even tied some tragic deaths to the incident.

In South Korea, the name Do Kwon will live in infamy. A South Korean court was first to issue a warrant for his arrest and Kwon physically fled the country, claiming that he moved to Singapore due to concerns about his family’s safety.

After months as an international fugitive, authorities finally arrested him in Montenegro.

Although LUNA has very little to do with XRP, the memory of quick riches and even quicker losses are front-of-mind for the historically conservative Ajummas community.

If XRP cannot hold onto its gains, it could provide even more disappointment to South Koreans still stinging from LUNA’s meltdown two years ago.

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A recent controversy involving a South Korean lawmaker’s cryptocurrency holdings has resulted in his resignation from his political party, and subsequent raids on prominent cryptocurrency exchanges Upbit and Bithumb, local media reports.

Kim Nam-kuk stepped down from the Minjoo party on Sunday after it was revealed that he possessed approximately $4.5 million worth of wemix coins in 2021. Interestingly, news outlets had already reported on Kim’s holdings two years ago. The question remains whether Kim had access to insider information that bolstered his investments or if he received free coins due to his political position.

Wemix, the company behind the cryptocurrency in question, vehemently denied any illegal support or provision of internal investment information to National Assembly members. In a blog post, Wemix stated, “Reports to the effect that WeMade illegally supported Wemix or provided internal information related to investments to members of the National Assembly are completely untrue.”

Upbit and Bithumb raided in Kim Nam-kuk investigation

As part of the investigation into Kim, Korean prosecutors raided Upbit and Bithumb, the two cryptocurrency exchanges that he allegedly used to open digital wallets. The raids on Monday reportedly resulted in the seizure of transaction records.

The scandal has prompted an internal investigation by the ruling political party into Kim’s conduct, as he faces allegations of conducting cryptocurrency trades during parliamentary sessions. Notably, Kim had voted in favor of regulatory legislation that sought to recognize certain gaming funds as cryptocurrencies.

Read more: Terraform Labs co-founder Daniel Shin and nine others indicted in South Korea

Kim’s crypto scandal unfolds against the backdrop of South Korea’s efforts to establish comprehensive regulations for cryptocurrencies. In January, members of the National Assembly reviewed 17 proposals related to crypto, covering a wide range of topics such as investor protections and reserve requirements for South Korean crypto markets.

Kim’s current holdings remain undisclosed.

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