'2030' Only Checked Coin Apps Last Month... 120 Million Hours Used "1100% Increase"

Analysis of Major 4 Exchanges Upbit, Bithumb, Coinone, and Kobit
Usage Time Has Continuously Increased Since November Last Year...Surged This Year

[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Lee Seon-ae] In April, individual investors spent over 100 million hours on major domestic cryptocurrency exchange applications (apps). Compared to the end of last year, this represents a surge of more than 1100%, driven primarily by the so-called '2030' youth generation familiar with mobile environments.

According to big data platform company IGAworks on the 9th, the total usage time last month for the four major domestic cryptocurrency exchange apps?Upbit, Bithumb, Coinone, and Korbit?across both Android and iOS was 121,329,409 hours.

This is a 1135.4% increase compared to the usage time in December last year (9,820,749 hours).

The usage time for these exchange apps, which can be aggregated across both Android and iOS, decreased by 25.8% from 5,742,425 hours in August last year to 4,261,513 hours in September. The downward trend continued through October (3,544,863 hours).

However, starting from November last year, when Bitcoin?the leading cryptocurrency?recovered to 20 million KRW on domestic exchanges for the first time in about two years, usage time steadily increased.

In November, the usage time for these exchange apps was 6,236,995 hours, a 75.9% increase from the previous month, and in January this year (18,650,822 hours), it surpassed 10 million hours. From February (35,055,320 hours) onward, usage time doubled every month, exceeding 100 million hours in April.

Breaking it down by exchange, Upbit's app usage time is overwhelmingly dominant. Upbit's app usage time in April was 100,624,040 hours, accounting for 82.5% of the total usage time that month. Although Upbit's app usage time shrank to 1,981,126 hours in October last year, it increased by 80?100% every month thereafter, surpassing 100 million hours within six months. Bithumb, which has the largest number of listed coins based on the KRW market, was not far behind Upbit until October last year (1,380,756 hours). However, from November onward, the gap between the two widened to 1 million hours, and by February this year, the difference was close to 20 million hours. Bithumb's app usage time in April this year was 16,023,352 hours, accounting for about 13.2% of the total.

Meanwhile, according to IGAworks, as of February, the monthly active users (MAU) of integrated cryptocurrency apps on Android and iOS totaled 3,123,206. This is about three times the 1.08 million users recorded in October last year, within just four months. By age group, those in their 20s and 30s accounted for 59% in February, making up more than half. Upbit had the highest number of users at 2,042,143, followed by Bithumb with 1,175,694 users. Upbit also led in average monthly usage time per user (12.8 hours) and number of usage days (13.7 days), with a standalone app usage rate of 47%.