Is listing Upbit a “certain benefit”? A detailed analysis of Upbit’s tactics to capture the crypto market
Original author:Jaleel，BlockBeats
Original editor:Jack，BlockBeats
Upbit is carefully arranging its own currency holding and market-making strategies, seizing the opportunity when the liquidity of the leading trading platform shrinks, and competing for the pricing power of tokens in the entire crypto market.
On October 24, the price of Bitcoin increased by 15% overnight. Driven by the good news about ETFs and the huge fluctuations in the big pie, many currencies also achieved impressive gains. Among them, MINA is the most eye-catching one.
A day after Bitcoin broke through $3,5000, the MINA token price exceeded $0.47 on Binance, a 24-hour increase of 13.27%. On the same day, Upbit, a Korean crypto trading platform, announced the launch of MINA, and its price immediately rose significantly on the site, reaching a high of $0.9648 in a short period of time. Compared with other mainstream trading platforms such as Binance,Create a price difference of up to double。
If we look closely, we will find that this is not the first time that tokens on the Upbit site have experienced large price differences. During the crypto winter of the past few months, South Koreas largest crypto trading platform has always seemed to be the best place for token price breakthroughs. Behind this phenomenon is a set of simple and crude but mature and effective tactics designed by Upbit to seize the encryption market.
Listing Upbit becomes a “certainty benefit”
Since the second half of 2022, the crypto industry has ushered in a new wave of regulation, and market liquidity has continued to dry up. Major trading platforms, led by Binance, have worked hard to increase revenue and reduce expenditure in order to survive. On the one hand, they have laid off employees on a large scale, and on the other hand, they have sought liquidity through various channels. performance and cash flow.
On October 20, Binance issued an announcement that it would launch the BSV 1-50 times U-based perpetual contract, which surprised the market. After all, CZ’s attitude was very firm when Binance delisted BSV four years ago. For another example, the news came out that DODO was market-made by DWF Labs. After it rose by more than 50% in 24 hours, Binance immediately launched DODO’s 20x U-based perpetual contract, which was commented by the community as “earning liquidity and handling fees” a forced act.” However, DODO Lianchuang DaiDai stated that Binance is gradually delisting the BUSD trading pair, so the delisting of the DODO-BUSD contract and replacement with DODO-USDT is a normal process and has no direct causal relationship with DWF.
While other trading platforms focus on online contracts, Upbit is focusing on spot trading pairs. After Upbit listed MINA, the price of MINA tokens increased significantly on multiple trading platforms. Not just MINA, BlockBeats found that in recent months, whenever the Korean crypto trading platform Upbit announced the launch of new digital currencies, the prices of these currencies have increased significantly.
According to BlockBeats statistics, all coins have experienced significant increases since June when Upbit announced its launch, and this trend has become more and more obvious as time goes by. Especially since August, this trend has been further strengthened, with the increase gradually rising from 10% to 50%. The detailed data are as follows:
On June 1, GRT was affected by the news of Upbits listing, and its short-term rise exceeded $0.15, with the maximum increase reaching nearly 15% in 15 minutes. On the 27th of the same month, BLUR was listed on Upbit and rose to $0.4 on the same day, with a 24-hour increase of 13.35%. Then on July 28, after IMX was listed on Upbit, the short-term increase exceeded $0.8, with a 24-hour increase of 9.7%.
Then on July 28, after IMX was listed on Upbit, the short-term increase exceeded $0.8, with a 24-hour increase of 9.7%.
By August, this trend was further strengthened. On the 10th, after STG was listed on Upbit, the price rose by more than 13% in a short period of time. On the 22nd, CYBER was affected by the listing of Upbit, and it rose by more than 8% in a short period of time. It continued to rise since 19:00 the night before, with a cumulative increase of more than 32%.
The GLMR launch event on September 25 further proved this trend. After Upbit announced the listing of GLMR, its price briefly exceeded $0.25 and rose by an astonishing 50.92% within 24 hours.
According to BlockBeats observation and statistics, after Upbit officially announced the currency listing, the currency price generally rose the highest within two hours, and then basically remained in a downward trend. Upbits official announcement has a short-term impact greater than the medium-term impact. MINA, which continues to rise after 2 hours, is a special case.
Currency holdings and customs deposits and withdrawals are the secret
The currency holding strategy of the Upbit trading platform has always been the focus of the market. BlockBeats found that the circulation of several coins that skyrocketed after being listed on Upbit is relatively low, which is a good opportunity for Upbit to compete for pricing power. Its currency holdings not only surpassed other large trading platforms time and time again, but also frequently became the largest currency holding address for multiple tokens, thus winning it pricing power in the market.
An obvious example is the case of CYBER. This performance show by Upbit and DWF on CYBER was officially launched on August 31st. At that time, the wallet address of the Upbit trading platform already held approximately 3.6 million CYBER, surpassing Binance to become the largest holder of CYBER, accounting for 33% of the circulating supply of tokens. At 3 pm that day, Binance suspended the withdrawal business of CYBER tokens due to insufficient ETH network balance.
On September 1st, the price of CYBER on Upbit was over 45% higher than the price quoted on the Binance platform during the same period. On September 2, the incident reached its climax, with CYBER continuing to see a premium, soaring from 30% to 167%.
Related Reading:Behind the farce of CYBER: the ruthless market makers’ tactics and trading logic》
There are many reasons for CYBERs increase. In addition to the enthusiasm of Koreans for currency speculation and the promotion of DWFs move, Upbits control of a huge circulation volume is also an important reason.
Controlling Shadow Addresses
In fact, there were clues about Upbit’s intention to become the “king of currency holdings” in July. According to a joint investigation by several on-chain investigators,point out, the whale wallet holding Algorand’s token ALGO is Upbit. They listed the on-chain evidence as follows in their investigation summary:
From September 1, 2020 to March 22, 2022, the TIPER ring network/exchange allows users to add on-chain text comments to withdrawal transactions. Most of these comments are in Korean and indicate the origin was sent from Upbit. From this, it can be concluded that the “TIPER ring” network is operated by Upbit, South Korea’s largest cryptocurrency trading platform.
Then Upbit issued a notice on September 9, 2020, announcing that Algorand had just been listed. The TIPER ring is also a collection of 11 accounts, which are the core of the network that supplies Whale wallets and external exchanges/wallets outflows.
This whale wallet is highly integrated with the TIPER ring, so it can be judged that the wallet is part of the TIPER ring. Therefore, it is concluded that the ALGO whale wallet is controlled by Upbit.
BlockBeats learned that from the data in July, Upbits wallet held a total of 687 million ALGO, Binance held 521 million ALGO, and Coinbase held 35 million ALGO. Upbits holdings were higher than Binance and Coinbase.
Going back to the recent past, although the price of STORJ has continued to rise over the past month, Upbit has not stopped its accumulation strategy. According to data monitored by Scopescan on October 9, Upbit has held more than 77 million STORJ, which is worth approximately US$40 million, making it the largest STORJ holding entity. Scopescan shows that Upbit collects STORJsFund transaction process。
The picture above shows the on-chain path for $STORJ to be transferred to the Upbit site; the picture below shows the holdings of $STORJ on each trading platform, source: Scopescan
According to Lookonchains monitoring data, the price of LOOM has skyrocketed recently, with a 24-hour increase of 42.48%. One of the major reasons for the increase is that the wallet address suspected to be related to Upbit increased its holdings of 21.42 million LOOM (approximately US$5.83 million) today, and held 653 million LOOM (approximately US$181 million) on October 13. , accounting for 50% of the total supply, is the largest currency holding entity.
The same is true for ZRX. The price has increased by 35% in the past 7 days, and a large number of currency withdrawals have been detected on the chain. Behind this, the Upbit deposit wallet address was the largest currency holding address of ZRX at the time, accounting for more than 11% of its circulating supply.
Not only that, in just three days, multiple new accounts related to Upbit deposited a total of 1.3 billion MXT. This makes the Upbit deposit wallet address once again become the largest currency holding address.
Create Stand-alone Coins
The largest currency holding entity has the largest pricing power. In other words, after the token price completes the pull-up, when Upbit’s currency holdings begin to decrease, the price decline begins.
Take LOOM as an example. On October 13, after the wallet address related to Upbit increased its holdings of 21.42 million LOOM, the price began to rise sharply, with a 24-hour increase of 42.48%. However, as the LOOM balance in Upbit becomes less and less, and the LOOM balance on other trading platforms becomes more and more, the price cannot be maintained.
It is suspected that the Upbit wallet address transferred 36 million LOOM, equivalent to approximately 17.7 million US dollars. Upbit also deposited LOOM more frequently to Binance and Bithumb within 48 hours, with more than 120 transactions, totaling approximately 19 million LOOM (worth approximately 676 Ten thousand U.S. dollars). The price of LOOM then fell below $0.12, falling 35% in 2 days.
This is contrary to the fact that token holdings began to decline significantly after they switched from Upbit to other trading platforms such as Binance. When other trading platforms close currency withdrawal channels, it seems to be seen as a good thing.
Since Upbit announced the listing of MINA, the price of MINA tokens on mainstream CEX platforms has increased significantly. However, during the same time period, the MINA token on the OKX platform was currently quoted at US$0.7948, the MINA token on the Binance platform was quoted at US$0.6182, and the quote on Upbit reached US$1.32, which is more than double the price of mainstream CEX. This price difference may be due to the fact that MINA on Upbit mainly supports recharges on the Mina network and does not support deposits through other networks such as BSC.
In addition, the spot price of MINA tokens on the OKX platform is also relatively high, reaching a 28% premium over Binance’s price. A large part of them suspended the withdrawal channel of MINA for more than ten minutes.
Coincidentally, during the CYBER incident in early September, Binance suspended the withdrawal business of CYBER tokens due to insufficient ETH network balance. This may have been one of the major reasons that boosted CYBERs premium to 167% at that time.
DWF really likes Upbit
The correlation between DWF and Upbit is increasingly visible to the naked eye. To a certain extent, it can be said that DWF and Upbit are a little alliance.
Going back to the CYBER incident that became an instant hit, Binance launched the CYBER 1-20 times U-based perpetual contract on August 21, and then the Korean crypto trading platform Upbit launched CYBER on August 22. Since the major trading platforms in South Korea at the time only supported CYBER deposits and withdrawals on Ethereum, demand for CYBER surged in the Korean market, resulting in price differences. At this time, as a master of market making, DWF Labs with quick eyesight and quick hands seized the opportunity to start moving bricks.
On the day CYBER was listed on Upbit, according to Lookonchain monitoring, DWF Labs increased its holdings of 170,000 CYBER from Binance at an average price of US$4.5, equivalent to approximately US$770,000. According to calculations, the value of this increased CYBER increased on August 30. to $1.26 million.
Immediately afterwards, the price of CYBER on Upbit was pulled to 37 US dollars, with a premium rate of 167%. CyberConnect issued an emergency proposal [CP-1] to unlock 10.88 million CYBER, which is equivalent to 300 million US dollars. The amount is staggeringly high. Amid the panic of the community, the official claimed that the data had been edited incorrectly and that the actual unlocked amount was 1.08 million.
In this Cyber incident, individual investors are undoubtedly the biggest victims. A currency circle KOL shared on social media that due to the astonishing increase in CYBER, he went short and long many times, ultimately resulting in a loss of millions.
Afterwards, DWF became controversial, and the dissatisfaction of the community and peers reached a new level. After being ridiculed and ostracized by the crowd at a Token 2049 forum, peer GSR publicly stated that DWF is not qualified to be on the same stage as Wintermute, OKX and other institutions. Wintermute CEO Evgeny Gaevoy also expressed support for this statement. But DWFs arrogance has obviously not diminished. Lianchuang Andrei Grachev responded to Wintermute, saying that you actually started to cooperate with your competitors and complained like children, calling us bad actors.
On the other side, as the price of CYBER fluctuates, the interaction between DWF and Upbit has frequently become the focus. The little alliance between DWF and Upbit was also confirmed again on ORBS. BlockBeats reported that ORBS accounts for the largest proportion in DWF Labs’ product portfolio, and Upbit happens to be the second largest holder of ORBS, with 1.63 billion ORBS, accounting for 20.59% of the total supply.
Not only that, but looking at the ALGO whale wallet mentioned earlier, it was revealed that it is controlled by Upbit. Upbits wallet holds a total of 687 million ALGO.
True brothers share weal and woe. As a member of the Little League, the cooperation between DWF and Algorand has also deepened. Whether it is purchasing ALGO Token worth 50 million US dollars or establishing a partnership with the Algorand Foundation, it shows that The relationship between DWF and Upbit is not just a business relationship, they may be closely related.
In general, the Upbit trading platforms influence on the cryptocurrency market is becoming more and more obvious, and its currency holding strategy and impact on prices have become hot topics in the market. Every time a new coin is listed on Upbit, it seems to herald a wave of gains.
After Upbit officially announced the currency listing, currency prices generally saw the highest increase within two hours, and then basically fell in a downward trend. Upbits official announcement has a greater short-term impact than a medium-term impact. But we see that yesterdays MINA continued to rise after 2 hours. It is difficult to say that this is not a new price setting strategy.
In addition to announcing the listing of the currency, Upbit address operations also have a certain impact on the currency price. When Upbit currency holdings increase, currency prices generally rise, and conversely when they decrease, prices fall. In terms of currency selection, Upbit’s preference seems to be obvious, and the market circulation is small. The coins held by DWF are also worth watching, given the growing correlation with it. BlockBeats reminds individual investors that when studying Upbit’s growth pattern, they should also take into account the changes in all parties, and conduct in-depth research on the market while pursuing interests.
