Seoul's SHIB Phenomenon: Korean Demand Rivals Binance Spot Liquidity for Shiba Inu Coin
South Korea's Upbit exchange has matched Binance in spot trading volume for Shiba Inu (SHIB). According to CoinGlass' liquidity heat maps, the daily turnover of the SHIB/KRW pair on the South Korean platform Upbit amounted to $5.29 million, exactly the same amount recorded on Binance.
The other international platforms are trailing by a wide margin: OKX's daily volume amounted to $2.63 million, while Bybit's reached $1.65 million.
The local spike in activity coincided with major movements of capital within the market. On-chain monitoring recorded a large Korean player accumulating 361 billion SHIB at a single address before making test transfers to Upbit and Korbit.
At the same time, Upbit itself conducted a series of large internal transactions, redistributing billions of SHIB between cold and hot wallets to maintain liquidity. The foundation for this rally was the return of the famous "Kimchi Premium."
Shiba Inu (SHIB) spot trading volume heatmap showing parity between Upbit and Binance, Source: Coinglass
During the first half of September, the Korean premium index remained in the +0.53% to +1.50% range, showing that domestic retail investors were willing to buy digital assets above their global average price. Due to strict currency controls and restrictions on capital movement in South Korea, international arbitrageurs cannot quickly equalize this spread.
As a result, excess buying pressure transforms not into SHIB price equalization but into a local explosion in trading volumes.
What the charts show — and why this is a modest result for Upbit itself
This phenomenon is clearly reflected in TradingView charts comparing the weekly timeframes of the SHIB/KRW (Upbit) and SHIB/USDT (Binance) pairs. Despite the overall synchronicity of the long-term downtrend from the 2024 peaks, the Korean chart clearly shows anomalous spikes in vertical volume at moments of local reversals.
