Pentabase specializes in end-to-end Web3 consulting, incubation, and marketing/PR, with a strategic focus on Korea and global support for Web3 projects.
Upbit, South Korea’s largest crypto exchange, has significantly increased the number of new token listings this year. From January to July 2026, 58 tokens were newly listed on Upbit’s KRW market. Yet despite the aggressive listing strategy, trading volume continues to decline amid the broader crypto market downturn. Upbit’s average daily trading volume fell from KRW 2.69 trillion in February to around KRW 834.9 billion in July, down roughly 70% from the beginning of the year. More importantly, the impact of new listings is weakening. Before June 15, newly listed tokens recorded a median 42% gain on their first day, with median trading volume reaching KRW 142 billion. After June 15, those figures dropped sharply to just 10% and KRW 54 billion, respectively. The trend suggests that frequent listings may be reducing the scarcity and attention that once made an Upbit listing a major market event. For years, getting listed on Upbit was seen as a strong signal of credibility among projects and often triggered significant buying momentum from Korean retail investors. But as listings become more frequent, that premium appears to be fading. 📉 More listings, but less impact. Upbit’s strategy highlights a broader challenge facing the South Korean crypto market: when investor liquidity shrinks, simply adding more tokens may no longer be enough to bring trading activity back.
A single abnormal SK Hynix trade triggered nearly $57.4 million (around ₩83 billion) in liquidations on an on-chain perpetual futures market. ⚠️ The incident began when one share of SK Hynix briefly traded at the daily lower limit during the pre-market session on South Korea's alternative trading system, NextTrade (NXT). That price was then transmitted through an oracle and used to calculate the index price for an on-chain perpetual futures market. As a result, the Hyperliquid-based SK Hynix perpetual futures contract plunged by nearly 18%, triggering widespread liquidations of long positions. Approximately $57.4 million in positions were liquidated, while blockchain analytics estimate that more than 900 traders collectively lost around $17.4 million. The product provider, trade.xyz, announced that it will fully compensate affected users and improve its oracle-based pricing methodology to prevent similar incidents in the future. Overall, this incident highlights how the reliability of oracle data and pricing mechanisms becomes critical as traditional financial markets and on-chain derivatives become increasingly interconnected. 👀