"Meme Season: The Beginning of FOMO? QCP Capital Report: Asian Retail Speculators Driving This Round of Increases"

With several meme coins doubling in price within days, a report from QCP Capital indicates that the current surge in the crypto market is predominantly driven by speculative retail investors in the Asian market; echoing a similar sentiment, analysts from JPMorgan Chase's report last week also claimed that the recent surge in the past few weeks is primarily due to the Fomo sentiment among retail investors, rather than institutional investors or market fundamentals.

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QCP Capital: This Round of Rally is Fueled by Retail FOMO

The Block cited an unpublished report from QCP Capital, indicating that the speculative buying frenzy seen during the Asian trading sessions last week and this week might be one of the reasons behind the significant surge in the crypto market in recent weeks:

In addition to strong inflows into ETFs, this rally is mainly driven by the frenzy of "speculative retail buyers."

It further added, "As retail FOMO kicks in, some small altcoins, including meme coins, are rebounding strongly."

The analyst also cautioned that the activities of leveraged traders are still increasing, and if Bitcoin successfully breaks its all-time high, the recent active market conditions may temporarily dissipate.

Previously, QCP Capital also mentioned in last week's report that traders holding bullish options have gradually started to take profits, by comparing the derivative data of Binance and Deribit.

Last week, JPMorgan analyst Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou also shared a similar view:

The recent frenzy in the crypto market is broadly similar to equities, driven seemingly by impulsive decisions made by retail traders rather than institutional investors or market fundamentals.

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South Korea's Kimchi Premium Resurfaces

Although QCP Capital did not disclose the specific location of the so-called "Asian" speculative frenzy, when it comes to the region in Asia where crypto speculation is most prevalent, South Korea is often mentioned. A previous report by DeSpread on the country also indicated the local frenzy for trading cryptocurrencies:

By 2023, there are approximately 6 million cryptocurrency investors in South Korea, accounting for over 10% of the total population; and they have shown strong interest in altcoins' deposit and withdrawal policies and arbitrage opportunities.

As Bitcoin led the crypto market to a sharp rise within a week, South Korea's major cryptocurrency exchange Upbit once again experienced the "Kimchi Premium" this morning.

The image above shows that the highest price for the Bitcoin to South Korean won BTC/KRW trading pair today reached 97 million Korean won, approximately $72,600, with a premium rate of 6.7%. The Ethereum to South Korean won ETH/KRW trading pair was at 5.308 million Korean won, around $3,974, with the same premium rate of 6.7%.

Meme Coins Surge, Market Cap Grows by 30% in a Day

Specific meme coins that are currently skyrocketing include Shiba Inu, Pepe, and Floki, with weekly gains of an astonishing 271%, 259.6%, and 215.9%, respectively.

Currently, according to the classification on Coingecko, among the top 100 tokens by market capitalization in the crypto market, there are 7 meme coins listed, including Dogecoin, Shiba Inu, Pepe, Bonk, Dogwifhat, Floki, and CorgiAI.

Moreover, in this category alone, the current market cap of the meme sector has exceeded $63.2 billion, with a 30.4% increase in the last 24 hours, significantly surpassing the gains of other sectors.

This article is not investment advice.