Emergency Martial Law Declaration Causes Turmoil
90 Million Won Lost in 30 Minutes
Major Exchanges Also Temporarily Server Down
On the night of the 3rd, Bitcoin prices plummeted to around 80 million won following President Yoon Suk-yeol's declaration of martial law, but later stabilized. Panic selling was concentrated immediately after the martial law announcement, causing starkly contrasting fortunes among 'coin ants' (individual cryptocurrency investors).
On the Upbit cryptocurrency exchange, Bitcoin was trading at 134,385,000 won as of 8:26 a.m. on the 4th, up 0.64% from the previous day. This represents a 52.3% increase compared to the previous day's low of 88,266,000 won.
The rest of the altcoins (cryptocurrencies other than Bitcoin) showed a similar trend. Ethereum, the leading altcoin, recovered to the 5 million won range, trading at 5,074,000 won, down 0.22% from the previous day. Other altcoins such as Bitcoin Cash (1.42%), Aave (0.93%), Solana (4.60%), Bitcoin SV (1.17%), and MultiverseX (11.52%) also showed upward trends. Only Avalanche traded down 1.13% at 71,900 won.
Individual investors who sold their virtual assets early after the martial law announcement sighed deeply. Around 10:50 p.m. the previous day, Bitcoin prices dropped to 88,266,000 won, breaking below the 90 million won mark. This was a 34% drop within 30 minutes of President Yoon Suk-yeol's declaration of martial law. The kimchi premium, which indicates the price difference between domestic and international cryptocurrency exchanges, also widened to a negative 32%. In the domestic cryptocurrency market, where corporate investment is prohibited, individual investors are the main participants.
Conversely, some investors who bought at the bottom during the peak of fear saw high returns in a short time. On the anonymous workplace community 'Blind,' users posted profit confirmations mentioning terms like 'martial law beam' and 'Seok-yeol beam,' playing on the term 'listing beam'?which refers to the sharp price surge and subsequent drop immediately after a new coin listing.
As virtual asset trading surged temporarily, major cryptocurrency exchanges such as Upbit, Bithumb, and Coinone experienced server outages. Upbit explained in a notice the previous day that "Upbit app services are delayed due to a temporary increase in traffic." It took 45 minutes from the service delay notice to the announcement of service normalization.
Hong Sung-wook, a senior researcher at NH Investment & Securities, said, "Because Bitcoin is a global virtual asset, the declaration of martial law mainly affected domestic exchanges. Since the issue was quickly resolved, domestic prices also seem to have recovered quickly."
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