Capital from South Korean retail investors is driving Ether’s price momentum and the emergence of corporate Ether treasury firms, industry insiders report, as the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency trades merely 7% below its all-time high.
According to Samson Mow, CEO of Bitcoin technology company Jan3, the “only factor” maintaining the Ether (ETH) price and treasury businesses at their current levels is around $6 billion of Korean retail capital.
“ETH influencers have been traveling to South Korea solely to market to retail investors. These individuals have no understanding of the ETHBTC chart and believe they’re making the next strategic investment,” Mow stated in a Monday X post, cautioning that the situation “won’t end well.”
Upbit and Bithumb are the two primary centralized exchanges (CEXs) utilized by South Korean retail traders.
In examining futures data, Upbit has emerged as the 10th largest CEX for Ether futures trading, boasting a trading volume of $1.29 billion in the past week, according to CoinGlass data.
Typically, crypto futures trading surpasses spot trading volume, thereby exerting a greater influence on the price of the underlying asset.
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Ether’s “Kimchi premium” indicates growing Korean retail investor interest
Ether’s “Kimchi premium,” which suggests that cryptocurrency prices are higher on South Korean exchanges compared to others, also reflects increasing demand from local retail investors.
This premium for Ether climbed to 1.93 on Sunday, rising from -2.06 on July 16, when Ether was priced below $2,959, as per blockchain data platform CryptoQuant.
This metric assesses the price differential for Ether between South Korean exchanges and others.
According to Marcin Kazmierczak, co-founder of blockchain oracle firm RedStone, Korean retail investors play a significant role in the crypto market, as evidenced by Ether’s kimchi premium.
However, he noted that this only represents a small fraction of Ether’s overall momentum.
“Describing them as the main support for Ethereum greatly underestimates the network’s diverse global capital base, including substantial US institutional investment through ETFs, corporate treasuries, and the vast DeFi ecosystem that relies on ETH.”
Kazmierczak emphasized that Ethereum’s strength is rooted in its “borderless nature,” merging Korean retail and international institutional engagement.
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Mow’s observations come amid growing skepticism among industry analysts about the sustainability of Ether treasury firms.
In September, Andrew Kang, founder of Mechanism Capital, criticized BitMine founder Tom Lee’s Ether thesis, claiming it inflated the value Ether gains from stablecoins and real-world asset (RWA) tokenization.
“Ethereum’s valuation primarily stems from financial illiteracy. While this can certainly result in a sizable market cap,” Kang commented in a Sept. 24 X post, adding that “the valuation derived from financial illiteracy is not limitless.”
Although “broader macro liquidity” has upheld Ether’s price momentum, Kang remarked that substantial organizational changes are crucial to avoid “indefinite underperformance.”
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