The trading volume on South Korean crypto platforms has plummeted – where it is now common for employees and executives of crypto exchanges to trade on the platforms of their employees.

Trading volume collapses on most of the Korean crypto exchanges

As previously reported, the majority of the country’s crypto trading platforms have closed or suspended fiat trading in the past few days – to comply with the regulator’s new operating system.

Companies that chose to open their doors without a Fiat KRW market seem to have paid a heavy price. Chosun Ilbo reports that in the case of Flybit, the 24-hour trading volume of $ 97.4 million on Jan.

The picture is no less bleak for one of the country’s largest stock exchanges, Gopax. Here the trading volume fell from $ 78 million on September 24th to $ 2.1 million on September 26th. Gopax itself processed $ 155 million in transactions through its platform on September 3, which increased the drop in trading volume (September 3-26) by nearly 99%.

Rivals like Coinbit and GDAC also saw similar trading volumes collapse

The four platforms still trading KRW are also seeing low volume – notably Bithumb, which has the ninth-highest 24-hour trading rate in the world according to CoinMarketCap data ($ 984 million). Rival Coinone is also in the top 20 at around $ 202 million.

Chosun added that industry sources have predicted that the profitability of crypto-to-crypto-only exchanges – whose main source of income is 0.1% -0.2% transaction fees – will “deteriorate” and force more closings.

Chosun noted that the slowdowns on these exchanges, many of which have added tether (USDT) and bitcoin (BTC) pairs as alternatives to the KRW market, have had little results so far. This is because USDT exchanges are supposedly hard to find in South Korea – a fact that leaves traders no choice but to look for platforms overseas. However, most of these platforms are trying to restrict their dealings with Korean customers after being warned of regulatory retaliation.

The report adds, “Converting bitcoin to cash via the four platforms that still offer fiat on / off ramps is also problematic, with potential liquidity issues and withdrawal limits.”

Meanwhile, KBS reports that at the request of the Financial Services Inspectorate, the Cabinet has signed an amendment to a decree of the Law on Specific Financial Information, with the new measure taking effect immediately. This means that exchange staff must use competing exchanges if they want to participate in the cryptocurrency market and limit the exchanges’ ability to distribute coins.

Exchanges have also been informed that they are no longer allowed to buy or sell coins that they issue or that they are linked to on their own platforms.

The exchanges have had a month to develop protocols outlining how they will enforce the measures.

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