South Korean investors have been betting on a number of cryptoassets beyond the top two by market capitalization – Bitcoin ($BTC) and Ethereum ($ETH) – as their top holdings asl include Cardano ($ADA), $XRP, and the meme-inspired cryptocurrency Dogecoin ($DOGE).
According to a study conducted by various leading South Korean cryptocurrency trading platforms, residents in the country are mostly holding the flagship cryptocurrency, with a total of 128,828 BTC worth over $5 billion currently being held by South Koreans.
South Koreans’ second-largest holding comes as a surprise, however, as $XRP took second place. According to the study, South Korean residents currently hold nearly $4.8 billion worth of the cryptocurrency, which is ranked 7th by market capitalization.
Data from CryptoCompare shows the country’s fiat currency, the South Korean won, represents XRP’s second-largest trading volume, behind Tether’s USDT only. XRP is traded against the won mostly on Bithumb and Upbit.
As CryptoGlobe reported Ripple, a popular fintech firm and a major player in the $XRP market, has announced it has developed a new standard, called XLS-20, to “help developers build more advanced and innovative NFT applications” on top of the XRP Ledger. Analysts have predicted XRP’s price could undergo a “big run” as the U.S: dollar weakens.
Notably, South Koreans hold around $4.5 billion worth of Ethereum, and about $1 billion worth of its competitor Cardano ($ADA), which came in fourth as their largest holding. Behind ADA is the meme-inspired cryptocurrency Dogecoin, with South Koreans holding around $900 million worth of DOGE.
Cardano, it’s worth noting, has recently seen its developer Input Output increase the network’s block size by 10% from 80 KB to 88 KB per block as network load has been holding above the 80% mark for months. The move came in a bid to “increase throughput and DApp performance.”
The study’s data came from the region’s top four cryptocurrency trading platforms: Bithumb, Coinone, Upbitt, and Korbit. It found that last year, investors in the country traded over $7 trillion worth of cryptoassets.
The amount of BTC held by South Korean investors surpassed the value of Apple shares they owned, which stood at $5.48 billion. It fell short of the value of Tesla shares owned, however, which stood close to the $17 billion mark.
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