The South Korean won has hit its lowest point against the U.S. dollar since March 2009, causing a 3% premium for Bitcoin (BTC) in South Korea compared to the United States, according to CryptoQuant data.
On Upbit, South Korea’s largest crypto exchange, Bitcoin is trading at 145,000,000 won ($98,600), while on Coinbase, the price is around $96,700. This price gap follows a dramatic political upheaval, with the South Korean parliament impeaching Prime Minister Han Duck-soo, only weeks after President Yoon Suk Yeol was impeached. As a result, the won plunged to a 15-year low against the dollar.
Jeff Park, head of alpha strategies at Bitwise, commented on the political crisis in a post on X: “At the heart of this issue is election fraud and the erosion of confidence in South Korea’s National Election Commission (NEC). The use of impeachment as a political weapon, combined with claims of foreign election interference, reveals how vulnerable democracies are to disinformation. This isn’t just a South Korean problem; it’s a global warning for all democratic nations.”
