The Daily: South Korea's short-lived military rule sparks record crypto trading volume and more

Happy Wednesday! In today's newsletter, South Korea's short-lived military rule sparks record crypto trading volume, Hyperliquid's HYPE token surpasses a $12 billion fully diluted valuation in less than a week, Tron surges 80% in 24 hours to reach a new all-time high and more.

Meanwhile, analysts predict continued volatility in South Korean crypto markets as the opposition party seeks to impeach President Yoon Suk-yeol.

Let's get started.

South Korea's short-lived military rule sparks record crypto trading volume

South Korean crypto trading volume surged to a record $34 billion over the past day as President Yoon Suk-yeol declared and then rescinded emergency martial law, all within the space of six hours.

• Upbit, South Korea's largest exchange, accounted for $27 billion in trading alone, while Bithumb, Coinone, Korbit and Gopax made up the remainder of the volume.
• The 24-hour trading volume nearly doubled the $18 billion recorded on Dec. 2, which had already made headlines for surpassing the daily volume of the local stock market.
• South Korean traders rushed to sell their assets on local exchanges following the president's declaration, with bitcoin prices on Upbit dropping to the equivalent of $62,182 at one point during the sell-off.
• Other cryptocurrencies also saw substantial declines amid exchange outages.
• However, the martial law declaration lasted just six hours, called off by the president after lawmakers unanimously voted to overturn it in an emergency session, allowing crypto prices to stabilize.
• South Korea's opposition party plans to file treason charges against President Yoon, the Minister of Defense and the Minister of the Interior and Safety and push for their impeachment.
• Decentralized predictions platform Polymarket saw the odds of a half-million dollar bet on whether President Yoon would leave office this year spike to 78% before falling back to 47%, reflecting the political uncertainty.

Hyperliquid token surpasses $12 billion FDV in less than a week

Hyperliquid's HYPE token surged over 200% since launching on Nov. 29 , reaching a $12 billion fully diluted valuation and a $4 billion market cap with 333 million of 1 billion tokens in circulation.

• HYPE exceeded $258 million in 24-hour volume, gaining more than 30% in price to over $12, with Hyperliquid now leading by trading volume and total value locked among all decentralized perpetual swap platforms.
• Zeta Markets co-founder Anmol Singh interpreted the high trading volume surrounding HYPE's launch as a sign of the growing prominence of decentralized exchanges over their "outdated and clunky" centralized counterparts.
• HYPE plays a crucial role within the HyperLiquid ecosystem, serving multiple functions that enhance the platform's utility and decentralization.

Tron surges 80% in 24 hours to hit new all-time high

TRX, the native token of Justin Sun's Tron network, surged 80% in 24 hours to reach a new all-time high above $0.43, breaking its prior peak of around $0.30 after nearly seven years.

• "The recent rally in TRX appears to be partly driven by political instability in South Korea," BTC Markets crypto analyst Rachael Lucas said. "TRX's role as a widely used transfer token between exchanges, especially in South Korea, makes it a tool for traders looking to move funds across platforms quickly."
• Meanwhile, Presto analyst Min Jung told The Block that while the political event likely held some part in the rally, it is unlikely that the surge was solely driven by it.
• "It could also be part of a broader 'dino rotation,' where legacy cryptocurrencies like XRP have been rallying under current market conditions," Jung said.

Former Celsius CEO Alex Mashinsky pleads guilty to two criminal counts in NY court

Former Celsius CEO Alex Mashinsky pleaded guilty to commodities fraud and a scheme to manipulate the price of its CEL toke n on Tuesday, according to courtroom reports from Inner City Press.

• Mashinsky was arrested in 2023 after prosecutors accused him of defrauding customers and misrepresenting the firm's financial health to attract investments, potentially facing up to 20 years in prison.
• In July 2023, the SEC also sued Mashinsky and the centralized crypto lender for allegedly raising billions through fraudulent, unregistered crypto sales.
• Celsius filed for bankruptcy protection in July 2022, which was wrapped up earlier this year, with some funds repurposed to establish a new bitcoin mining company called Ionic Digital.

US gov moves $33 million in seized crypto from FTX to unknown addresses

The U.S. government transferred $33.6 million in crypto seized from the collapsed crypto exchange FTX and its sister trading firm Alameda to two unidentified addresses on Tuesday.

• The funds included 5,024 ether ($18 million), 13.5 million BUSD and $1.5 million worth of SHIB, according to blockchain analytics platform Arkham.
• The transfers also involved various other tokens, such as AERGO, POWR, AXS, YFI, WBTC, NMR, COMP, SRM and RLC, coinciding with a market-wide crypto rally.

In the next 24 hours

• U.S. jobless claims data are released at 8:30 a.m. on Thursday.
• U.S. FOMC member Thomas Barkin will speak at 11:30 a.m.
• The Block's Emergence conference kicks off in Prague!

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