South Korean Traders Are Jumping on SXP, ICX Tokens

Solar (SXP) and icon (ICX) tokens are now popular bets for South Korean traders.

Both tokens have rallied by as much as 40% in the past 24 hours with hundreds of millions of dollars in trading volumes on local South Korean crypto exchanges.

The ICX-Korean won token pair saw over $420 million in trading volume on Upbit, a prominent South Korean exchange, CoinGecko data shows. The SXP-won trading pair saw over $490 million in volume, more than either bitcoin (BTC) or ether (ETH) trading pairs.

In both cases, trading volume exceeded market value: SXP had a market capitalization of $455 million at writing time on Tuesday, while icon’s capitalization was just under $350 million.

The payments-focused blockchain Solar Network is the rebranded main network of Swipe, which was previously a debit card provider. Binance, the world's largest crypto exchange by trading volume, purchased Swipe in 2020. Last week, Binance said it will support a token migration of SXP in the coming days – which may have buoyed recent interest.

ICX is popular in South Korea for its local roots. The network allows users to transfer tokens between different blockchains, allowing ICX to be used for staking, network governance and collateralization on decentralized-finance platforms.

South Korean crypto traders have a record of pushing euphoric rallies on tokens. The so-called Kimchi Premium originates from the region. That's when the price of bitcoin on local exchanges can trade as much as 30% above the price on international exchanges.

Last week saw a similar rally in XRP: Upbit led global XRP trading volumes with more than $790 million worth of tokens traded over a 24-hour rolling period on March 30.

Still, there's reason to treat the figures with caution. Some of the volume may be attributable to wash trading, a manipulative technique in which traders continually buy and sell the same asset to drive up volume to create a false impression of market activity.