XRP Beats Bitcoin on South Korea’s Top Exchange as Upbit Volume Hits $8 Billion

South Korea’s largest crypto exchange, Upbit, recorded 11.2 trillion won, about $8 billion in weekly trading volume, a 6.74% increase from the prior week.

XRP was the most traded asset, ahead of Bitcoin and Tether. The print gives investors a fresh look at where Korea’s retail liquidity is concentrating.

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Why XRP Keeps Topping Bitcoin on Korea’s Biggest Exchange

Upbit is a KRW-native venue. Volume here is local cash, not recycled stablecoin flows recycled across global order books. Korean retail traders deal directly in XRP/KRW pairs, bypassing dollar-based routes entirely. This is not a one-week anomaly.

XRP trading volume has topped Bitcoin on Upbit before, including during the period when Hana Bank and South Korea’s four biggest financial firms pursued a combined $670 million stake in Dunamu, Upbit’s parent company.

That institutional backdrop explains part of why the exchange draws such deep liquidity.

The pattern goes deeper than preference. BTC and XRP dominate Upbit trading when Korean equities crack, with capital rotating into crypto during domestic stress.

That rotation dynamic has recurred multiple times in 2025 and 2026. The dominance is structural, not a spike. XRP has held the top crypto position in South Korea on Upbit for extended stretches.

A single day last year saw over $1.22 billion in XRP volume on the exchange alone, representing more than 22% of Upbit’s entire daily activity.

During peak periods, Upbit’s daily volumes have surged over 270%, with single-day highs reaching $3.81 billion. XRP captured the largest share of
those spikes.

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Retail Tape vs Institutional Track: Two Different XRP Stories

The Upbit data is one half of the XRP picture. The other half is institutional. On the payments side, Ripple has built a stack in Korea that now includes three bank partnerships.

Ripple partnered with Jeonbuk Bank to replace SWIFT with real-time payments, cutting multi-day settlement windows for business clients. That followed earlier integrations with Kyobo Life and Kbank.

The infrastructure layer is also expanding. A South Korean giant launched XRP custody services covering Upbit, Coinone, and Korbit, the three largest domestic exchanges.

That is not retail enthusiasm. That is institutional plumbing. Meanwhile, the derivatives market tells a different story. CME has overtaken Binance as the largest XRP futures venue by open interest.

That is a sign institutional capital is rotating into regulated derivatives, even as retail volume lives on Upbit’s spot order books.

The timing lines up. XRP futures volume hit a 6-month high in August, with Binance printing $37 billion and Upbit’s own spot volume hitting $4.68 billion for the month.

Last week’s $8 billion weekly print extends that run. The split is the investor takeaway: Korea handles retail. CME handles institutional. Both are growing at the same time.

For context on the policy backdrop shaping this week’s flows: the Senate CLARITY Act vote is scheduled for September 15, the day after Upbit’s weekly print landed.

The SEC also delayed Teucrium’s leveraged XRP ETF to October 11. Washington is still debating the wrapper. Korea is already trading the asset.

One thing this week’s data does not confirm: a market-cap flip. Ex-Ripple CTO David Schwartz has argued XRP could overtake Bitcoin, but that is a market-cap argument, not a volume argument.

High retail volume on a single exchange is not global adoption. It is participation, and Korea is participating at a structural level.

The regulatory weight on XRP this week is real. The SEC delayed a new XRP ETF as the CLARITY Act Senate vote looms. That delay has not slowed Korean won-denominated demand.

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