XRP Upbit volume surged to $330 million on May 15 after Hana Bank announced a $670 million Dunamu stake.
Summary
- XRP’s Korean won pair led Upbit with over $330 million in 24-hour trading volume, outpacing Bitcoin’s $217 million and Ethereum’s $109 million.
- South Korea’s Hana Bank agreed to buy a 1 trillion won stake in Dunamu, operator of Upbit, in the largest bank investment into a crypto exchange on record.
- XRP pulled back from a 24-hour high of $1.55 to $1.45 as options expiry pressure offset the volume surge, with trading activity up over 83% on the day.
XRP Upbit volumes surged on Friday after South Korea’s Hana Financial Group announced it will acquire a 1 trillion won ($670 million) stake in Dunamu, the operator of Upbit, through its subsidiary Hana Bank.
The XRP-KRW pair recorded over $330 million in 24-hour volume, outpacing Bitcoin’s $217 million and Ethereum’s $109 million on the same exchange.
The deal is expected to close on June 15, giving Hana Bank a 6.55% stake in Dunamu and making it the exchange’s fourth-largest shareholder. Hana Financial Group simultaneously signed a strategic agreement with Dunamu to build a “digital asset-based financial innovation” model linking traditional banking and crypto markets.
Hana Financial TI has already completed a proof-of-concept for a Korean won-backed stablecoin on the XRP Ledger.
South Korea’s deepening XRP footprint
The Dunamu deal is the latest in a series of Korean institutional moves tied to XRP. As crypto.news reported, Ripple signed a partnership with Kyobo Life Insurance in April to pilot the tokenization of South Korean government bonds using Ripple Custody, the first time a Tier-1 Korean insurer adopted on-chain bond infrastructure.
South Korean retail traders have consistently shown strong preference for XRP, a pattern crypto.news documented earlier this year when XRP emerged as the standout trade of the 2026 crypto rally.
XRP spot ETFs, whose combined US assets under management crossed $1.25 billion, have also been attracting record inflows, adding an institutional layer to what has traditionally been retail-driven Korean demand.
Despite the volume surge, XRP pulled back from $1.55 to $1.45 amid broader market weakness linked to the $2.6 billion options expiry and rising US Treasury yields. Analysts continue to watch the $1.50 level as the first meaningful resistance for any extended move higher.
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