The five most successful South Korean cryptocurrency exchanges

The Korean government and the national banks may have mixed sentiment on digital currencies, but that hasn’t seemed to stop the country from being one the world’s leaders in the cryptocurrency trade exchange market.

The nation has become somewhat of a hub of exchanges which can make choosing the right one difficult for individuals who are looking to trade. In this list, we will be exploring several of the crypto-exchanges which have emerged from South Korea in order to offer insight into their different trading methods.

Coinplug

“The world will experience change with Coinplug’s Blockchain technology with a flexible blockchain platform for various industries and leading researchers.”

Founded in 2013, Coinplug has become best known for their okBitcard service, which offers citizens the option of buying vouchers for Bitcoin stores within the country such as 7-11 or Mini Stop shops using only the user’s phone number or using a credit card at a linked ATM. This allows for a quick and easy service for small purchases of bitcoin if a user does not want to log in online in order to make a transaction.

With over 7000 ATMs across Korea, Coinplug is on the path to achieving the laid out ambition to offer convenient Bitcoin acquisition to the public.

The team has strength in names such as the CSO Jeffrey Song and the technical advisor being Ethereum’s Vitalik Buterin.

Korbit

“Korea’s First Bitcoin Exchange”

The first cryptocurrency exchange in South Korea has gained and maintained a stellar reputation in the Asian market, holding a tasty 6% of all market shares in Korea.

Korbit is appealing to traders who are looking for an exchange with low trading fees, high security, and a good remittance service. Although it has recently banned foreign traders from trading using their national currencies on the platform, before the change it used to be a foreigner-friendly company and catered for many investors which earned it a good standing in the market. Forward thinking, Korbit has been on top of maintaining a good relationship with the regulatory authority in South Korea and has thus taken all steps to ensure that it is regulated within the laws.

With investors and partners such as Pantera, SK Planet, and BAM Ventures, Korbit has managed to raise $3.6 million USD in funds.

Coinone

“Bringing Blockchain into the World with connections permeating the world”

In claiming to be the future, Coinone is getting there slowly in claiming 8% of the country’s market share. Boasting a platform which focuses on Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Ethereum Classic, this exchange has quickly made its way into the Korean market and has managed to develop from a 20 person team to hiring over 100 employees in less than eighteen months.

Coinone is also winning individuals over in its practice to promote education in trading by issuing statements on the listed coins and teaching users about the different features on the tokens, even getting into the nitty-gritty elements, such as the technological developments of the coin.

Coinone prides itself on speedy transactions, security features, and investment consultation and places a high value on trust, innovation, and professionalism.

Bithumb

“Global cryptocurrency exchange”

This exchange managed to time becoming one of the up-and-coming hubs of cryptocurrency exceptionally well, offering pairings such as EOS/South Korean Won, as well as Tron/South Korean Won and provides trading options for coins such as Ethereum, Litecoin, and Bitcoin Cash.

Holding a significant 33% of the country’s market share, Bithumb sees a delightful ₩250 billion Won daily in trading volumes.

The exchange offers cryptocurrency to cryptocurrency pairings too and made offered a “token swap” for EOS and Tron investors for their mainnet launch.

Like Coinplug, Bithumb is aiming for an easy solution for using digital currencies in everyday life. Earlier this year, the platform partnered with Korea Pay’s Services in order to include Korean brands which would allow users to pay for goods and services in cryptocurrencies

UpBit

“Korea’s Most Cryptographic Exchange”

UpBit is evidence of how successful a calculated launch and strategic partnerships can be and the exchange has managed to bag itself a whopping 53% of the market share in Korea with a 24-hour trading volume of₩1.3 trillion Won.

The platform launched when Kakao – the biggest messaging application developer in Korea – partnered with US-based exchange Bittrex and UpBit took advantage of this and provided users on the platform the opportunity to use their mobile devices for transactions, with the application being available to anyone who uses iOS or Android.