Crypto Exchange Upbit Launches Korea’s First Cryptocurrency Index
Korea’s largest cryptocurrency exchange has announced the launch of the country’s first cryptocurrency index.
Upbit, a relatively new Korean crypto exchange that has quickly established itself as the country’s biggest by trading volume, is launching the first domestic cryptocurrency index in a bid to help crypto investors better understand overall market trends. Dubbed the UBCI (Upbit Crypto Index), the index will be measured from four market indices based on long-term transactional data at the exchange by calculating standard values in confidence intervals, Business Korea reports.
The four indices developed are as follows:
- Market Index: A total cryptocurrency marketcap-weighted index that factors the market’s total liquidity ratio while providing investors an overview of all coins.
- Sector Index: An index that will classify coins in their own specific sectors based on their characteristics.
- Bitcoin Index: An index focusing on bitcoin trading prices in the market; and
- Strategy Index: A rule-based index to serve as an indicator of quantitative investors rules and tracking yields of investors’ crypto portfolios.
As reported previously in September, Upbit was first announced by FinTech startup Dunnamu – the operator of the country’s most popular stock trading app Kakao Stock as a comprehensive new trading platform with support over a hundred cryptocurrencies. An affiliate of Kakao Corp, Dunamu launched Upbit in beta the following month. Dunamu enabled Upbit traders to connect with other Kako apps including Kakao Talk, the country’s most popular messaging app used by 93% of South Korea’s population and Kakao Pay, a mobile payment platform with over 13 million users.
Within months of its launch, Upbit quickly became Korea’s leading cryptocurrency trading operator. Market data released by a politician from Korea’s ruling Democratic party last month revealed Upbit accounted for over half of the country’s cryptocurrency trading market at 52.9%.
Marketplace data of bitcoin trading in Korea over the last 24 hours shows a similar picture.
Following the notable announcement of the new indices, Dunamu president Lee Seok-woo drew parallels between the nascent current stage of the cryptocurrency market with traditional financial markets. In doing so, he underlined the need for investor indices.
He stated:
The present situation of the cryptocurrency market is quite similar to the traditional financial market based on stocks and bonds in its early stage. Accordingly, as the market gets more sophisticated, the UBCI is expected to play an important role in this area in the future. We will also disclose the index rulebook and let the market evaluate it before long.
Upbit intends to launch three indices as soon as April, followed by an unscheduled launch date later in the year for its Strategy Index.
Featured image from Shutterstock.
