Bitcoin took a brief turn to the bad, old days below $30,000 early afternoon Wednesday (ET) before righting itself to return to its loftier perch. The largest cryptocurrency was recently trading at about $30,100, down 2.2% over the past 24 hours. After rising to its highest level in a year last week – over $31,300 – following spot bitcoin ETF filings by BlackRock and two other large financial services firms, bitcoin has flattened as investors considered the potential timing of an SEC decision of the ETF applications and continued, inflationary pressure that has weighed on asset markets.
June has been the biggest month since November for digital assets as it relates to news flow, said Mark Connors, head of research for Canadian digital asset manager 3iQ. Not unusual to see the market take a breather.
The capital city of Seoul is in the top tier for regulatory structure and scored high for ease of doing business and digital infrastructure – all criteria in which the government has a strong influence. Its grassroots’ embrace of crypto puts the country within the top 15% of the world in the crypto adoption index.
It’s obviously been a fantastic year for bitcoin so far but a spring sell-off was another reminder that it doesn’t come without major setbacks, said Craig Erlam, senior market analyst for foreign exchange market maker Oanda.
Korean retail traders are known for pushing up other coins as well – and no, that’s not just smaller altcoins. The Korean won is consistently in the top three national currencies traded against Bitcoin, according to Coinhills. More generally, awareness of and interest in crypto is relatively high. Korea’s Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) reported in September that there were nearly seven million registered crypto users in Korea. That’s roughly 14% of the total population.
Members of South Korea’s crypto community explained Seoul’s appeal in a few ways. One was an openness to experimentation. Another was Korea’s prowess in gaming. A third was simply its community of builders.
The market remains optimistic about the future of a spot bitcoin ETF in the U.S., as bitcoin (BTC) maintains the key $30,000 level. Stablecoin supplies on smart contract platforms continue to trend downward, but the smart contract index has maintained a solid performance. Bitcoin’s market cap composes 52% of the total crypto market, its highest level since April 2021.