South Korea crypto recurring buys near $700M despite market downturn

The cumulative investment amount in recurring cryptocurrency purchase services offered by South Korean exchanges has approached 1 trillion won, Yonhap News reported. Data submitted by five exchanges to lawmaker Park Sang-hyuk of the Democratic Party, a member of the National Policy Committee, showed that cumulative investment at the three platforms offering the service — Upbit, Coinone and DigitalX — reached 972.92 billion won ($697.6 million) as of the end of August, up 429.07 billion won, or 78.9%, from 543.85 billion won at the end of last year. The service automatically buys cryptocurrencies after users set the asset, purchase interval and amount. Bithumb and Gopax do not offer the service. By exchange, Upbit accounted for 897.71 billion won ($643.9 million), or 92.3% of the total, as of the end of August, up 402.65 billion won, or 81.3%, from 495.06 billion won at the end of last year. Over the same period, DigitalX rose to 63.26 billion won ($45.4 million), up 15.08 billion won, or 31.3%, while Coinone jumped to 1.195 billion won ($858,000) from 61 million won, an increase of 1.134 billion won, or 1,859%.