BITPRESS | Where the money moves behind the news

Crypto

No Hack, Yet Gopax Froze Trading and Withdrawals

Gopax received only a hacking threat email and no losses have been reported so far, yet it halted trading and withdrawals. At the end of September it kept just 80.54% of customer coins in...

Investing 101

KOSPI sidecar kicks in: will my sell order freeze too?

On Nov. 5, the KOSPI (South Korea's main stock index) sell sidecar halted only the program trading orders that computers place automatically, while sell orders placed by individuals were filled...

Crypto

Samsung Wallet now has a USDC dollar-coin account. Why can't Korean Galaxy users use it?

By Samsung's count, about 82 million US Galaxy devices are compatible, and Samsung seems to have been able to open USDC accounts on them thanks to rules more than...

Crypto

Called digital gold, Bitcoin fell 6% as AI stocks plunged. Why?

On Nov. 5, as the Nasdaq fell 4.2%, Bitcoin dropped more than 6% at one point to $75,463. It looks less like crypto-specific bad news than an...

Government Policy

Democrats Take the Senate and House: What Trump's Last Two Years Could Look Like

Musk spent more than $445 million, yet Republicans lost both the Senate and the House, and in Texas, where data center investment is concentrated, a governor-elect emerged who wants to pause data center...

Real Estate

Seoul renters with no renewal right left: how much more next spring?

The renewal right can be used only once, so a tenant who has already used it must reset the deposit to market price at next spring's expiry, with...

Global Stocks

The day Trump's Republicans were routed, US stocks posted their biggest gain since August

The S&P 500 rose 1.58% on Nov. 4, the day Republicans lost both the Senate and the House. Markets cheered not Democratic policy but hopes that the Iran war could end, which...

Crypto

Upbit keeps 99% of its coins in cold wallets. Could it stop a Binance-style hack?

A high cold-wallet ratio means the exposed share is small, not that hacks are prevented. The $6.3 billion Binance hack (about 8 trillion won) began with a fake interview task...

Real Estate

From Nov. 13, How Much of Their Deposit Can Jeonse Fraud Victims Get Back?

From Nov. 13, jeonse fraud victims whose recovery after an auction or public sale falls below one third of their deposit get the shortfall from LH. It is not an extra third on top: it is a...

Crypto

100,000 Bitcoin behind USDT... how far would they have to fall before $1 wobbles?

About 100,000 Bitcoin sit in Tether's reserves, but if other assets hold their value, Bitcoin would have to fall about 95% before the $7.95 billion excess reserve runs out....

Investing 101

What Changes When Your Stock Becomes an 'Investment Caution' Stock?

Investment caution is only a stage where the Korea Exchange publicly flags concentrated trading by a few accounts; the official guide lists no trading restrictions. The 100% cash margin deposit and the ban on buying on...

Real Estate

Nowon Apartment Rents Up 12.9% This Year: Why Are Outer Districts Rising Fastest?

From January to September, Seoul apartment rents rose most in cheaper outer districts such as Nowon (12.88%) and Seongbuk (11.82%), while Gangnam rose just 2.62%. Outer-district tenants who signed with low deposits during the 2022-23 jeonse price slump are now reaching...

Korean Stocks

Memory Costs Rise, HL Mando Profit Falls 45%

HL Mando's third-quarter operating profit was 51.5 billion won, down about 45% from a year earlier. It could not pass higher memory purchase prices on to carmaker customers in time, so the...

Korean Stocks

SK Hynix's 20 trillion won buyback: why isn't half of it cancelled?

Of the 20 trillion won buyback SK Hynix decided on October 28, only 10 trillion won goes to shares that will be cancelled. The other 10 trillion won or so buys shares to hand out as employee...

Government Policy

5 things to know before the Nov. 3 US midterm elections

The midterms, which do not choose a president, decide whether President Trump can pass the laws he wants during his remaining two years, and companies put a...

Korean Stocks

151 low-PBR stocks named: is lower always cheaper?

The 151 low-PBR companies that Korea Exchange announced on Nov. 2 all have a PBR of 0.51x or lower, but the list is a record of firms that sat near the bottom of their own industry in at...

Investing 101

KRW 50 trillion flowed to bank products other than deposits in one month: how does a "principal-protected" ELD work?

As money moves to bank products other than deposits and savings, the ELD, which promises to protect principal, appears to stake the interest you would have earned on stock-index options. So...

Korean Stocks

Korea names 151 "low PBR" stocks for the first time: what changes for the companies on the list?

The low-PBR list is not a list of cheap stocks. Of 185 companies that met the criteria, 34 that filed plans to lift their share prices were left off, and the remaining...

Government Policy

When a company is sold, the big shareholder sells it all and small investors only part. What is my share?

The mandatory tender offer, set to return after about 30 years, lets a buyer stop at "50% plus one share" counting the controlling shareholder's stake, so the bigger that stake, the less small...

Crypto

Tether Earned $1.5 Billion in 3 Months. Why Don't USDT Holders Get Any Interest?

Most of the $1.5 billion Tether earned in the third quarter is interest on U.S. Treasuries and reverse repos bought with dollars USDT holders paid in. Holders only have the...

Investing 101

Gold falls to a one-year low in wartime. Why?

Even as the Iran war drags on, gold fell to $3,880 an ounce on Oct. 30, its lowest in a year. Oil prices pushed up by the war are fueling inflation, and U.S. interest rates...

Korean Stocks

Intel drops nearly 30% on pricey memory. Bad news for SK hynix?

Intel blamed its weak outlook on "memory being too expensive," and for SK hynix, which earns around half of its DRAM revenue from servers, the PC slump is not directly bad news. However...

Crypto

Coinbase revenue fell 35%, yet net income rose 66%. Where did the profit come from?

Of Coinbase's third-quarter net income of $719 million, almost the same amount, $715 million, was a paper gain from a rise in the value of the crypto the company was holding. It did not sell...

Crypto

Binance Hacked for About KRW 8 Trillion: Who Covers Customer Losses, and How?

Binance says it will cover the roughly $6.3 billion hack loss in full with its user protection fund and company money, but the fund holds only about $1 billion in Bitcoin...