Is the DNA of old investors changing? Why are cross-cycle old currencies taking off collectively?

The Korean grandmothers who bought villas in Jiangnan with XRP in the last round are back to let the market feel the power of kimchi.

The Bitcoin, although always blocked at the $100,000 whole number mark, has apparently already flowed into the altcoin market. Data shows that Bitcoin's market share has dropped to 55.25%, while Ethereum has risen to 12.74%, and the ETH/BTC exchange rate has stabilized above 0.037, and other smaller market cap altcoin sectors have started their performance moments. In the public chain sector, ADA rose again by more than 15% today, with a price around $1.3. The weekly chart has even seen a rare five consecutive increases, realizing a return of over 400% from the bottom of $0.3. FTM rose by more than 17% today, with a price around $1.2. AVAX rose by more than 10% today, and the 7-day increase was over 20%, XRP's 7-day increase was over 85%, with a current price of $2.7. In the RWA sector, ONDO even hit a new historical high, with a current price of $1.65, up more than 35% in 24 hours and over 64% in 7 days. In the DeFi sector, LINK rose by 24.49%, MKR rose by 16.08%, and AAVE also recorded an increase of over 11%. The market's upward trend is pleasing, but what is the reason? ## Tether has minted 16 billion USDT on Ethereum and TRON Lookonchain monitoring shows that Tether Treasury minted another 1 billion USDT around 6 am this morning. Tether Treasury has cumulatively minted 16 billion USDT on Ethereum and Tron since November 6. The market cap of USDC has also risen from $15 billion at the beginning of this month to around $40 billion. Currently, the total market cap of stablecoins has risen to over $193.9 billion, a new historical high, with a total increase of 2.3% in 7 days. The continuous growth of the stablecoin market cap represents that incremental funds are still entering the market to chase the tokens of smaller market cap projects, and after the hype of new projects, the old projects are also ushering in their own spring. ## Favorable changes in US regulatory policies Bitwise CEO Hunter Horsley recently stated that "in the past 30 days, Coinbase's market cap has increased by about $30 billion, and XRP's market cap has increased by about $100 billion. The US has shifted from regulatory resistance to regulatory favorability, which is one of the biggest and most important structural catalysts seen in the crypto field. Its impact has just begun." Trump is about to officially take office as the next president on January 20 next year, but has been very active in personnel arrangements recently, not only planning to expand the CFTC's regulatory authority over the crypto market and delineate the responsibilities with the SEC. In addition, according to a FOX Business reporter citing sources, Trump will also announce the successor to the SEC chairman tomorrow. Since SEC Chairman Gary Gensler announced that he will resign when Trump takes office, the market has been eagerly awaiting the successor to the SEC. Although the specific candidate is still unknown, the market generally believes that the next SEC chairman will change the harsh style and turn to a crypto-friendly attitude. Astute market investors have found that the leading coins in the current market rally, such as ADA and XRP, have also benefited from the change in US policy and soared. On the news front, there is good news one after another, with WisdomTree filing an S-1 registration document for an XRP ETF with the US SEC. ADA has also been listed on Robinhood US along with XRP and SOL. As early as November 25, DWF founder Andrei Grachev analyzed that the US election will have a huge impact on the market, and in the short term, domestic projects in the US and top-tier VCs will be the most profitable. ## Influx of buying power from the Korean market The frenzy of coin trading in Korea was already known to the world in the last bull market cycle. After the recent market continued to rise, Korean buying power has been pouring in. On the major Korean cryptocurrency exchanges Upbit and Bithumb, the number of user accounts for those over 60 years old reached 775,700 (as of the end of September), an increase of 30.4% compared to the end of 2021. This age group holds 67.609 trillion won worth of cryptocurrency assets, with an average investment of about 8.72 million won per person. At the same time, the demand deposit balance of the five major Korean banks is 592.67 trillion won, a decrease of 26.95 trillion won from the end of June, a new low since January this year. CryptoQuant data shows that the total monthly trading volume of stablecoins on the top five CEXs in Korea - Upbit, Bithumb, Coinone, Korbit and GOPAX - was about 16.17 trillion won (115 billion USD) in November 2024. This figure includes the total trading volume of stablecoins such as Tether (USDT) and USDC issued by Circle, and is also 7 times the around 2 trillion won recorded at the beginning of the year. This is also the first time that the monthly stablecoin trading volume in Korea has exceeded 10 trillion won. XRP is even in a frenzy of buying. Ryan Kim, a partner at Korea's largest crypto venture capital firm Hashed, posted on social media that in 2014, Ripple Labs sold XRP in Korea through the "Ripple Market Korea" project in a Ponzi scheme manner, attracting a large number of Korean investors. These early investors may have already gained considerable returns, and there is a real XRP community in Korea, which is the reason why Koreans are buying XRP in large quantities. CoinGecko data shows that the 24-hour trading volume of the Korean CEX Upbit reached $18.449 billion, ranking second among CEXs, while the trading volume of the top-ranked CEX Binance was $50.572 billion yesterday. The Trump effect combined with the expectation of rate cuts has accelerated the transfer of Korean funds from banks to risky assets. ## Summary Bitcoin spot ETF inflows reached a record high of $6.5 billion in November alone, far exceeding any other month this year. Currently, with the continuous support of spot ETF buying, a large amount of market funds have flowed out of Bitcoin and Ethereum to various sectors and new and old projects. Matrixport analysis shows that if Trump's nominations for the Treasury and SEC are realized, the crypto market narrative may evolve into a DeFi revival. The crypto market may maintain a volatile upward trend until Trump's formal inauguration.