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How to develop the Asian cryptocurrency market?
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37.1% of the world’s centralized exchange traffic comes from Asia, ranking first in the world; mainstream centralized exchanges such as Binance, OKX and Upbit constitute the core liquidity centers. Asian users are highly dependent on these exchanges for transactions, and they are also the main platforms for discovering new projects.
After the airdrop, most Asian traders tend to engage in short-term arbitrage, that is, quickly sell the tokens after they are unlocked, which leads to large price fluctuations. Their sources of airdrop information are mainly community-driven, focusing on private community dissemination and sharing, such as WeChat, Telegram, Discord, and X. The trading behavior characteristics of these traders include frequent small transactions and rapid selling. Before the airdrop, traders will use small amounts of funds to interact with multiple wallets to increase the chance of airdrops; and within a few hours after the airdrop is released, the airdrop token will experience a surge in trading volume, and the token price will usually fall. This can be verified by the time zone effect. The GMT+8 time zone (Asia) often has the earliest selling pressure.
Asian cryptocurrency traders are highly KOL- and community-driven, and are susceptible to FOMO (fear of missing out). Therefore, if a meme coin becomes popular, these investors' funds will quickly pour into it, pushing up the token price in the short term. In the process, traders mostly implement highly speculative short-term strategies, and the trading logic revolves around the principle of "buy low and sell high". Common strategies include: early entry, fast profit taking, and swing trading that follows community trends. From the data, Asia is the largest market for GMGN, a website that combines meme coin data dashboards and trading tools. 19% of the platform's traffic comes from Chinese users, which also highlights the strong interest of Chinese investors in Solana meme coin trading.
South Korea's cryptocurrency trading volume ranks among the top in the world, and it was once known as the "cryptocurrency trading power". Among them, Upbit Exchange has a market share of more than 80% in South Korea. South Korean investors have a clear preference for CEX transactions and a low degree of participation in DEX, but the NFT market is relatively active. It is worth mentioning that Meme coins and altcoins are extremely popular in South Korea, especially Solana Meme coins have attracted a large number of Korean investors. In terms of regulation, South Korea passed the first crypto asset regulatory framework, the Virtual Asset User Protection Act, in July 2024. The bill imposes stricter requirements on digital asset exchanges. Crypto exchanges are required to store at least 80% of user deposits in cold wallets to achieve the isolation of user deposits from the exchange's own funds. In addition, exchanges must also entrust user cash deposits to local licensed banks for safekeeping and hold the same number and type of cryptocurrency reserves as customer deposits. On the other hand, South Korea will introduce a mechanism to limit the volatility of token listings and institutional investor access rules in 2025. South Korea's Financial Services Commission (FSC) has announced that it will release comprehensive crypto asset investment guidelines by the third quarter of this year to allow institutional investors to invest in crypto assets. The guidelines will regulate cryptocurrency investments by institutional investors, listed companies, and non-profit organizations, which also means that South Korea will lift the ban on institutional investors investing in crypto assets.
Chinese users have a strong demand for high-yield products such as Curve and Aave, and the DeFi and DEX ecosystems are active. In terms of information dissemination, investors rely more on private communities such as VIP paid groups and cryptocurrency KOL recommendations, which in turn forms a herd effect.
Japan: A compliance-driven long-term investment market
Thailand: A Market with High Crypto Adoption and Friendly Regulation
South Korea: A highly regulated, transaction-driven market
China: A highly active but regulated market
Malaysia: A market oriented towards institutional investors
