According to a report by crypto pricing and analytics service CoinGecko, cryptocurrency investors in South Korea, Singapore, and Japan were the most active users of the now-defunct FTX exchange from January to October 2022, based on the number of monthly unique visitors.
In CoinGecko’s report on the countries most affected by the FTX collapse, the majority are in Asia, which is not surprising given that the US investors were using FTX.US, not the international exchange that melted down.
Top 30 Countries Most Impacted by #FTX‘s Collapse 🌎
— CoinGecko (@coingecko) November 20, 2022
Our research show that #SouthKorea, #Singapore and #Japan were the most impacted, with a combined 15.7% traffic share to https://t.co/8K1ohIsWuQ.
Read the full study: https://t.co/kNjazHvC0T pic.twitter.com/XILrv58may
CoinGecko noted that the balances on centralized crypto exchanges dropped from $123.6B on November 2 to $102.8B on November 13 as users withdrew their funds. CEX balances of the top six major cryptocurrencies had fallen by approximately 16.8% in less than a fortnight.
Per the report, the three Asian countries accounted for 15.7% of total FTX traffic during the period, with South Korea accounting for the highest 6.1%, representing 297,229 unique monthly users.
The South Korean government has now accelerated the development of its regulatory framework, the Digital Asset Basic Act, which is expected to be completed in 2023.
Singapore came in second, with 241,675 monthly users, accounting for 5% of total FTX traffic. Following the withdrawal of Binance from Singapore last year, many crypto investors shifted to FTX, which may explain the country’s ranking on the list, according to CoinGecko.
The third-largest user base was also an Asian country, with Japan accounting for 223,513 unique monthly visitors to FTX.com. SoftBank, a Japanese investment firm, reported earlier this year that it had invested $100 million in FTX. Taiwan and India were also in the top ten, and the top 15 Asian countries accounted for more than 25% of FTX users.
On November 11, the Sam Bankman-Fried-founded digital assets exchange FTX declared bankruptcy, stoking concerns of market-wide spillovers.
Following the colossal market downturn, Korea’s financial watchdog, the Korea Financial Intelligence Unit (KoFIU), has launched an investigation into cryptocurrency exchanges for listing their in-house, self-issued tokens.
