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South Korea Ditches Crypto for AI Stocks as Retail Traders Fuel a 70% KOSPI Surge

Sun Nov 09 2025

South Korean traders abandon crypto for AI-driven equities, fueling a 70% KOSPI rally led by Samsung and SK hynix. Crypto trading volume plunges 80% year-over-year.

🇰🇷 South Korea Swaps Bitcoin for AI Chips: Retail Traders Fuel 70% Stock Market Boom

From blockchains to circuit boards — Korea’s legendary risk-takers just found a new playground. Crypto trading has crashed up to 80%, while Seoul’s stock market is exploding — powered by AI semiconductors and a government-backed reform wave that’s turned Samsung and SK hynix into national rallying symbols.

💸 From Altcoins to AI

Once the beating heart of global crypto mania, South Korea has gone quiet on the blockchain front. Exchanges Upbit and Bithumb — once handling nearly $9 billion a day — now barely reach $1.8 billion in daily turnover.

Daily crypto volume collapsed from $5–27B → $2–4B.
Active deposits dropped from 280,000 (2018) to under 50,000 since 2021.

According to Wu Blockchain and Dune Analytics, this marks the sharpest contraction in Korea’s crypto liquidity since 2017.

But while degens log off, AI traders log in.

📈 KOSPI: Korea’s New Casino (with Fundamentals)

The KOSPI index has surged 70% year-to-date, hitting 17 new intraday records in October alone. The fuel? Samsung Electronics and SK hynix, whose high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips power the world’s AI models — from Nvidia’s GPUs to OpenAI’s data centers.

Retail accounts exploded from 86.5M → 95.3M in under ten months. Margin lending is booming, leveraged ETFs are trending, and retail dominance is back — just with a patriotic twist.

“Speculation hasn’t died,” one Seoul trader quipped. “It just moved to the KOSPI.”

Unlike meme coins, this time the gamble is anchored in hard tech. AI is the decade’s global growth engine — and Korean firms sit at the heart of its supply chain.

🏛️ Policy + Patriotism = Bull Run

President Yoon Suk Yeol’s administration has engineered a financial renaissance. The reforms — dubbed the “Korea Discount Fix” — target better governance, higher dividends, and stronger incentives for local investors.

It’s state-backed capitalism with a nationalist glow: make Korean equities irresistible, keep liquidity onshore, and tie growth to innovation.

The result: a policy-fueled, AI-driven bull market where retail investors feel both rich and patriotic.

🪙 The Crypto Fallout

The exodus from digital assets is reshaping global markets. Without Korea’s high-frequency retail traders — historically among the most aggressive in crypto — altcoins are stalling.

Meme coins down over 20% in recent weeks.
Bitcoin cooling near $100,000 after hitting fresh highs.
Global crypto liquidity thinning across Asia.

Korea’s absence has taken the air out of speculative manias — leaving memecoin rallies short-lived and alt markets fragile.

But history hints at a comeback. When the AI hype cools, Korea’s traders — ever hungry for volatility — may return to crypto like they always do: suddenly, loudly, and in size.