South Korean Crypto Exchange Upbit the Subject of Lawmaker’s ‘Monopoly’ Scrutiny
The South Korean crypto exchange Upbit is facing scrutiny from a lawmaker concerned that it is turning into a “monopoly.”
According to Newsis, MP Min Byeong-deok, a member of the National Assembly’s Political Affairs Committee and a member of the Democratic Party, is also concerned about the market dominance of Upbit’s banking partner K Bank.
Min noted that Upbit accounts for some 60% of South Korea’s total trading volumes as of July.
This represents a relatively sharp decline from a figure of over 80%, which it reached in October last year.
However, despite the drop of about 20% in market share, Min and others are still concerned about “monopolization” in the domestic market.
K Bank partners exclusively with Upbit, and dwarfs all other banks involved in crypto exchange-related business.
Data compiled by Min’s office shows that K Bank’s share of the crypto sector stood at 76.87% last year.
In 2022, the same bank cornered almost 69% of the market. In 2021, just under 73% of crypto-related banking transactions went through K Bank.
By contrast, the commercial banking giant Nonghyup (NH) went from a market share of 95% in 2020 to a relatively paltry 18.51% last year.
K Bank’s Upbit partnership has proven extremely successful. Its neobanking platform allows customers to sign up for accounts online.
During the coronavirus pandemic, this turbo-charged new account creation on both Upbit and K Bank.
K Bank’s neobanking rival Kakao Bank has tried to redress this by partnering with the Coinone crypto exchange.
However, the data shows that Coinone and Kakao Bank only accounted for about 3% of the domestic market last year.
The statistics further show that almost half of K Bank’s customers have crypto exchange-linked accounts. Min said:
“The
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