The recent rise of the public chain Aptos (APT) has been astonishing. According to Tradingview data , APT has continued to rise since December 29, 2022 at $3.06, and hit a high of $20.4 on January 26 this year. During this period, the largest increase was as high as 565%. Then it began to fall back, and it was at $16.65 before the deadline.
It is worth noting that South Korea is considered to be the driving force behind the rise of APT. When APT rose above $20 on January 26, the single-day trading volume of APT on the Korean exchange Upbit exceeded $1 billion, even the largest in the world. 4 times the trading volume of the cryptocurrency exchange Binance.
As of now, Coinmarketcap data shows that in the past 24 hours, Upbit’s APT/KRW trading volume reached 122 million US dollars, still ranking first among all exchange trading pairs, accounting for 26.72%. In comparison, Binance’s APT/KRW USDT and APT/BUSD transaction volumes were USD 67.43 million and USD 39.96 million, accounting for 19.38% and 8.75% respectively.
Absurd reason: Aptos (APT) is a meme coin in South Korea
Regarding why Aptos is so hot in South Korea, as one of the venture capital institutions investing in Aptos, Alex Shin, the co-founder of Hashed, a South Korean cryptocurrency venture capital institution, explained on Twitter on the 5th:
For those wondering why APT is $17, it's because Aptos is the meme coin in South Korea.
South Korea’s largest asset class is real estate, more precisely, apartments. Retail investors call Aptos an apartment, claiming that if people hold APT, they will be able to afford a real apartment one day.
It's not a joke, it's real.
However, Alex Shin revealed in response to a netizen’s inquiry that he did not buy APT himself:
I do not hold APT.
Focus on the Korean market
In fact, Aptos itself attaches great importance to the Korean market. Aptos launched the Aptos World Tour Hackathon this year. The first stop is Seoul, South Korea. It will be held from February 1st to February 3rd. Aptos Labs co-founder Mohammad Shaikh said in his opening speech for the hackathon on the 1st:
When we were thinking about where to host our first hackathon, there was no doubt that Seoul was the place we wanted to go the most.
In November last year, Aptos also reached a partnership with NPIXEL, a South Korean 3A game studio. NPIXEL announced in January this year that it will launch the Web3 game "GranSaga: Unlimited" on Aptos. The public beta will be launched in the first quarter of 2023, and A global launch is planned for Season 2.
