The ones who stayed needed an asset that moves enough on its own to feel like a leveraged play. XRP fits the bill: deep order books, tight spreads, fast settlement, and enough volatility to give retail traders the swings they’re chasing. That’s why XRP has been Korea’s default crypto trading chip for years. Upbit listed XRP as its single most-traded asset for 2025, with over $1 trillion in cumulative volume and 13.26 million users on the platform alone.

The current spike, though, isn’t coming from young crypto traders. It’s coming from Koreans in their 40s and 50s rotating out of weak stocks. “This trend is led by South Korean retail investors in their 40s and 50s,” Ryan Yoon, a research analyst at Tiger Research, told DL News. He explained that older Korean traders are pulling money out of a slumping local stock market and putting it back into the crypto they recognize best—XRP, the same asset many of them held in 2017 and 2018.

Korea has roughly 15.5 million crypto users, around 30% of the adult population, so when capital rotates like this, the volume shows up quickly.

Korean Volume Is Up — But XRP Still Can’t Break $1.50

XRP has tested the $1.49-$1.50 zone four times this year, and each test has failed the same way. On March 17, the SEC and CFTC jointly classified XRP as a digital commodity, the price spiked to $1.60 on a 250% volume surge, and for a few hours, it looked like the breakout was finally happening.

Then, the Fed held rates the next day, raised its 2026 inflation forecast, and projected just one rate cut for the year. The whole rally unwound days after, and that was the same case when XRP rallied to $1.50 in April. The recent rally on May 11’s was met with the same fate, with XRP retracing right after hitting $1.50.

Roughly 36.8 billion XRP—about 60% of all circulating supply—is parked near the $1.44-$1.45 cost basis. That’s traders who bought during the past several months and are now near break-even. So, every rally toward $1.50 runs straight into a wall of holders who finally want out without taking a loss. Korean volume can pump all it wants, but those Korean buyers are absorbing the same overhead supply that’s been blocking the XRP price from breaking higher.

That wall doesn’t fall to volume alone—it needs a catalyst, and one is scheduled for Thursday. The Senate Banking Committee marks up the CLARITY Act on May 14, the bill that would clarify crypto’s regulatory status in the US.

Polymarket odds for it passing in this year spiked to 90% intraday last week, then dropped to 62% after the three biggest U.S. banking trade groups rejected the stablecoin compromise embedded in the legislation. A successful markup could absorb the supply wall and push XRP toward $1.65-$1.80, which are the next major resistance zones.

What Korea’s XRP Volume Means for the $1.50 Breakout

Here’s the honest read on Korea’s XRP volume: it reflects solid demand for XRP, but the supply overhang still has to give way. Buying alone doesn’t break resistance when sellers are entrenched at the same level.

The 36.8 billion XRP overhead at $1.44-$1.45 needs a catalyst to absorb the supply, and Thursday’s CLARITY Act markup is the most likely trigger. If it passes, XRP could rally toward $1.65-$1.80.

Moreover, there’s one more thing that matters over the next week. Thursday’s CLARITY Act markup outcome is the binary catalyst, but XRP’s weekly close still needs to settle above $1.46 to confirm the breakout. If the price can hold above that level then it could retest $1.50 with hopes of finally breaking above and holding it.

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