Yigit Taha OZTURK 
Retail cryptocurrency trading volume in South Korea surged to an impressive $18 billion within the past 24 hours, outpacing the country’s entire stock market by 22%, according to a report published by 10x Research on December 2. This marked the second-highest trading volume recorded this year.
Interest in “High-Momentum” Altcoins Spikes
Markus Thielen, the founder of 10x Research, noted that South Korean traders have been heavily engaging with high-momentum tokens such as XRP, DOGE, ENS, and HBAR. According to the report, Ripple’s XRP token led the trading frenzy with a staggering $6.3 billion in volume. It was followed by Dogecoin ($1.6 billion), Stellar ($1.3 billion), Ethereum Name Service ($900 million), and Hedera ($800 million).
Thielen stated:
“These high-momentum cryptocurrencies are being driven predominantly by retail traders, capitalizing on and reinforcing momentum-driven trends.”
XRP, ENS, and HBAR, often referred to as “dino coins” due to their longstanding presence in the crypto market, significantly outperformed other tokens last week. These assets recorded impressive gains of 90%, 73%, and 168%, respectively.
Additionally, the report highlighted that Bitcoin’s funding rates remained “relatively mild,” sitting at 15% annually during this period.
With the noticeable uptick in altcoin trading activity, Thielen suggested that an “altcoin season” is already in motion:
“We are witnessing one of the largest divergences between Bitcoin’s relatively mild 15% annual funding rate and South Korea’s retail trading volumes surging to $18 billion. The action is clearly in the altcoin market, and everyone needs a strategy to catch these waves while remaining disciplined.”
XRP’s Historic Rally Continues
Ripple’s XRP token has been on a historic run, skyrocketing 436% over the past month and hitting a new yearly high of $2.80 on December 2, according to TradingView data. This surge propelled XRP past Solana and Tether in market capitalization, making it the third-largest cryptocurrency at the time of writing.
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