Korea, SG, Japan suffered most from FTX’s collapse: study

South Korea has been the most affected country by the collapse of Sam Bankman-Fried-led crypto giant FTX, followed by fellow Asian countries Singapore and Japan, according to an analysis by CoinGecko.

The study was based on monthly average traffic and traffic share by country on FTX using SimilarWeb data from January 2022 to October 2022.

The data shows that South Korea had the highest traffic share of 6.1%, representing 297,229 monthly users. Meanwhile, Singapore made up 5% of global traffic with 241,675 monthly users, followed by Japan with 4.6% of traffic share at 223,513 users.

After the collapse of FTX, officials in South Korea said they would draft the digital asset basic act, a regulatory framework – expected to be finalized in 2023 – that will regulate the country’s crypto sector.

Singapore, where Temasek previously poured a total of US$275 million into FTX, has seen Binance users switching to FTX after the former withdrew its application for a crypto license in the city-state, according to the study. With FTX’s failure, Temasek has written down its FTX investment to US$0.

In Japan, SoftBank is also set to mark down its full investment into the troubled crypto exchange. The Japanese investment giant said it had invested US$100 million in FTX.

Other Asian markets in the top 30 most affected countries by FTX’s downfall include Taiwan, India, Thailand, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Vietnam, and the Philippines.

See also: Singaporeans feel ‘betrayed’ by Temasek-backed FTX