South Korea’s Bitcoin Trading Volumes on LocalBitcoins Reach New Record Levels

Bitcoin (BTC) trading volumes in South Korea have recently reached new levels on peer-to-peer (P2P) exchange LocalBitcoins, according to charts on BTC statistics service Coin Dance.

According to the data, bitcoin weekly trading volumes have surged over the past two weeks, with the latest week recording a new high of around 219 million South-Korean won ($185,000).

South Korea LocalBitcoins Weekly Trade Volumes in BTC. Source: Coin Dance

Founded in Finland in 2012, LocalBitcoins offers over-the-counter trading of local currency for bitcoin and operates as a P2P trading platform. The Finnish crypto trading platform is especially popular in Latin America, with Venezuela and Colombia having reportedly accounted for 85% of LocalBitcoins’s trading volumes by February 2019.

According to data from crypto analytics website Coinhills, the South-Korean won is one of the most popular national currencies trading against bitcoin. Accounting for around 20,000 btc ($173 million) in daily trading volumes against bitcoin, the won is ranked the third largest national currency traded versus BTC after the U.S. dollar and the Japanese yen.

Top 8 national currencies traded against bitcoin. Source: Coinhills

In mid-April, major South Korean crypto exchange Coinnest started closing its services, which was reportedly a result of the extended 2018 bear market. Subsequently, Cointelegraph reported that the number of South Koreans buying cryptocurrency with fiat money has significantly increased, while the amount of crypto investment in 2018 surging by 64% over 2017.

Last week, LocalBitcoins banned Iranian residents from using its service, as the exchange purportedly had to restrict Iranian transactions to comply with financial regulations in Finland, as well as with the sanctions imposed by the United States.