Crypto Recurring-Buy Investment Nears $707 Million, Up 79% This Year

Cumulative investment in recurring crypto purchases in South Korea has climbed to nearly 1 trillion won even as the digital-asset market remains weak, driven by growing use of an automated buying service known as "Accumulation."

The Gangwon Domin Ilbo reported on October 12 that lawmaker Park Sang-hyuk of the National Assembly's Political Affairs Committee analyzed data submitted by South Korea's five largest digital-asset exchanges. As of the end of August, cumulative investment in the Accumulation service stood at 972.92 billion won ($707 million).

That was up 429.07 billion won ($312 million), or 78.9%, from 543.85 billion won at the end of last year.

The service automatically buys cryptocurrencies based on user-selected settings, including the asset, purchase amount and frequency. Upbit, Coinone and DigitalX currently offer it.

Upbit accounted for 897.71 billion won ($653 million), or 92.3% of the total. That was up 402.65 billion won ($293 million), or 81.3%, from 495.06 billion won at the end of last year.

DigitalX recorded 63.26 billion won ($46 million), up 15.08 billion won ($11 million), or 31.3%, over the same period. Coinone surged to 11.95 billion won ($8.7 million) from 610 million won ($444,000), a jump of 1,859%.

User numbers also increased. The three exchanges had a combined 337,119 cumulative users of the Accumulation service as of the end of August, up 91,808, or 37.4%, from the end of last year.

Upbit's user count rose 32.2% to 296,675, while DigitalX added 11.4% to 10,982. Coinone posted the fastest growth, with users rising 166.2% to 29,462 from 11,067.

The data suggest demand persisted among smaller investors seeking to spread out entry points and reduce their average purchase cost despite the market downturn.

Staking services, which let users deploy digital assets to help operate blockchain networks in return for rewards, showed mixed trends across exchanges.

Upbit's cumulative staking users rose 20.4% from the end of last year to 365,121 as of the end of August. Its cumulative staking investment, however, fell 4.3% to 11.2294 trillion won ($8.16 billion).

Bithumb, by contrast, posted a 2.1% increase in users to 374,326, while cumulative staking investment rose 24.0% to 1.3292 trillion won ($966 million). Coinone reported an 11.4% increase in users to 341,992 and a 10.9% gain in investment to 316 billion won ($230 million).

DigitalX had 37,659 users, up 11.3%, but investment fell 14.1% to 169.9 billion won ($123 million).