* 4 CEXs (out of 5) supporting Korean Won
1. 2022–2023 Annual sales and market shares
- While most of them are trying to diversify their revenue sources (via staking, NFT businesses. etc), Korean CEXs revenues are still heavily concentrated on trading commissions (above 98% of total revenues). This heavy concentration also has to do with regulations limiting their business diversification efforts (unlike foreign CEXs).
- As such, above numbers represent their trading commission revenues and market shares during the last two years. Gross trading volume numbers might be larger for #Bithumb and #Coinone from other third-party reference sites, but you do need to consider that these volumes were probably increased post periodic zero-commission policies adopted by some of them (basically all of them except #Upbit).
- The top two (Upbit and Bithumb) basically account for more than 98% of the total market share.
- Upbit’s market share increased from 78% to 86% last year despite its most conservative listing policy (the lowest number of new listed projects per year).
- Bithumb suffered the largest YoY sales decrease probably due to their zero-commission policy in 4Q23.
2. 2022–2023 CEX owned digital asset balances
- With the overall digital assets prices recovering, digital asset balances owned by CEXs all showed YoY increases.
- Upbit saw the largest YoY increase as its balance is heavily skewed towards BTC.
- The above table depicts how many BTC & ETH each CEX owned during the last two years.
- Unfortunately, Coinone did not provide breakdown for its ETH possession.
- The above charts show Upbit’s BTC balance outweighs most other CEXs.
3. 2022–2023 CEX customers’ digital asset balances
- Customers’ digital asset in dollar terms deposited in each CEXs also increased dramatically helped by overall price appreciation.
- Customers’ BTC balance was roughly 73%/19%/4.2%/3.8% at the end of last year in the following order: Upbit / Bithumb / Coinone / Korbit.
- Customers’ ETH balance was roughly 72% / 18% / 5.8% / 4.4% for the same period and same order (surprisingly similar to BTC allocation across CEXs).
4. 2022–2023 CEX customers’ fiat deposit on CEXs
- All CEXs mentioned in this post support Korean Won fiat trading pairs.
- Except for Coinone, retail’s KRW deposit on all CEXs increased (this typically occurs during bull markets).
- Bithumb showed the largest inflow with +46% YoY growth (probably propelled by its zero-commission policy in 4Q23).
5. 2022–2023 CEX cash and cash equivalent balances
- Above table shows how much cash and cash equiv. each CEX owned at the end of 2022 and 2023.
- Despite posting losses, Bithumb showed the largest YoY increase which was the result of cash inflow from disposal of certain assets.
- Coinone and Korbit posted YoY decreases as they were unprofitable.
Written by Eric Yoo (Co-founder of Trinito) and contributions from Jiyon Kim (Associate at Trinito).
Disclaimer
This is not investment advice and is for informational purposes only. You should not construe any such information or other materials as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.
Links
- Dunamu (Upbit) 2023 Financial Report:
https://dart.fss.or.kr/dsaf001/main.do?rcpNo=20240328001689 - Bithumb 2023 Financial Report:
https://dart.fss.or.kr/dsaf001/main.do?rcpNo=20240401004312 - Coinone 2023 Financial Report:
https://dart.fss.or.kr/dsaf001/main.do?rcpNo=20240405002672 - Korbit 2023 Financial Report:
https://dart.fss.or.kr/dsaf001/main.do?rcpNo=20240409002249
#Dunamu #Upbit #Bithumb #Coinone #Korbit #Korean #CEX #ETH #BTC #XRP #ADA #ETC #Altcoins #Crypto #digitalassets #valuation
