Korean Crypto Users Spike Following Trump’s Election Victory

The number of South Korean crypto owners spiked by 610,000 after Donald Trump’s election to a second term as president.

The total number of crypto investors in the country stands at a record 15.6 million, or more than 30% of the population of 51.23 million people, according to the local Yonhap news service.

“The virtual asset transaction volume is rapidly increasing to a level comparable to that of the stock market,” said Rep. Lim Gwang-hyun, a member of the National Assembly Planning and Finance Committee.

In a report to a legislator, the Bank of Korea (BoK) cited Trump’s pledge to foster the cryptocurrency industry as a reason for that jump in the month of November, Yonhap noted. During each of the preceding four months, about 100,000 new cryptocurrency investors were added.

And even that isn’t the full picture, as the BoK only counted the users of the country’s five largest exchanges: Upbit, Bithumb, Coinone, Korbit, and GOPAX.

The report suggested that the potential for a pro-crypto regulatory regime in the U.S. also contributed to Koreans’ desire to own digital assets.

In research published a week before the election, the Pew Research Center found that 17% of Americans had invested in crypto, but noted that the number jumped to 42% for males aged 18-29 and 36% for those aged 30-49.

South Koreans have invested almost $70 billion in crypto. At the end of October, that number was $39.5 billion. That’s an increase of almost 45%, largely attributable to the skyrocketing price of cryptocurrencies led by Bitcoin, which was up more than 50% in the election’s aftermath