u.today
Something unusual is playing out on the Korean crypto market this week, where $XRP has moved into a dominant position across both Upbit and Bithumb, according to CoinMarketCap. Trading activity around the token has surged, pushing volumes well past those of Tether and even Bitcoin and Ethereum.
With a daily trading volume of $351 million, $XRP led the board on Upbit with a 14.84% market share, comfortably ahead of Ethereum, Bitcoin and $USDT. Over on Bithumb, $XRP topped the list again with $151.6 million in volume, surpassing $USDT and doubling Bitcoin’s numbers. So, $XRP's presence is hard to miss.
Much of this appears to be driven by retail momentum. After climbing from $2.14 to $2.48 in a short span, the volume spike followed quickly. In the past couple of days, $XRP trading on Upbit surpassed both ETH and BTC in volume. Within 24 hours, the combined Korean markets saw over $1.2 billion in $XRP volume.
$XRP takes over Korea
Futures markets are following the same trend with a 41.6% increase in open interest on $XRP contracts this week, bringing the total to $3.42 billion. Furthermore, liquidity metrics are showing signs of concentrated demand.
For example, on Upbit, the +2% bid depth for $XRP is $929,000, while the -2% ask depth is $3.72 million. Similarly, Bithumb shows $1.27 million in bid depth and $1.98 million in ask depth, placing $XRP ahead of most major tokens in terms of active market depth.
In addition, the $XRP token recently surpassed $USDT to claim third place in the global market cap rankings, achieving 4.47% total market dominance.
As retail interest rises and futures positioning grows quickly, $XRP's performance in Korea stands out this week, not only in price, but also in behavior across spot and derivative markets.