We must first establish a general idea of KRW dominance in the overall crypto market, and also individual coin dominance within the KRW market itself. I've selected six coins that fit the following criteria and define our target market segment.
- Established projects in the crypto space with good fundamentals.
- Top 20 in the overall crypto market.
- KRW trading pairs on at least two big Korean exchanges (Bithumb, Coinone, and Korbit)
Here are some KRW dominance statisitics from each market. These numbers were taken from CoinMarketCap.
- KRW/QTUM: 41.03%
- KRW/XRP: 40.83%
- KRW/ETC: 34.08%
- KRW/BCH: 21.06%
- KRW/ETH: 9.12%
- KRW/LTC: 5.98%
- KRW/BTC: 4.03%
The average dominance percentage is 22.30%. From this statistic, we can say that KRW pairs account for roughly 1/5 of the volume in this market segment. That's absolutely insane, and speaks to the importance of the Won in the crypto market.
Now, let's take a look at the distribution statistics of each individual coin within the KRW market.
As you can see, the average distribution percentage for each coin is 14.29%.
Let's take a look at some population statistics. A recent study showed that approximately 31.3% of Korea's salaried population has invested in cryptocurrency, with an average investment of $5300 USD.
Korea's population is ~51,000,000. The number of people between the ages of 25 and 64 is ~30,600,000. A conservative estimate of Korea's salaried population would be 90% of this age group. This gives us ~27,540,000 people. With an average investment of $5300, the estimated total investment for Korea's salaried population is ~$45,686,106,000.
From this number, we can calculate an estimate of ICX's price in the KRW market. However, the 14.29% distribution average does not account for the Korean hype and FOMO factor.
Let's take a look at XRP with its 39.57% dominance in this segment of the KRW market. XRP is extremely popular in Korea for a few reasons.
- Ripple and XRP have been getting significant press due to SBI Ripple Asia's partnerships with Korean banks.
- Japanese and Korean banks will be using the Ripple network, and possibly XRP in the future, for transfer of value.
- It's easier to take fiat profit in KRW than USD when trading XRP. This is because KRW is a high denomination currency and XRP is a "low priced" coin.
ICON is being touted as "Korea's national blockchain", and the hype around it when it launches on Korean exchanges will probably be UNREAL. Thus, let's account for this in our estimate, and give ICX a few more percentage points over the 14.29% average. How about 18%?
At 18% KRW market dominance, the estimated market cap of ICX is ~$8,223,499,080. With a circulating supply of 377,545,005 ICX, each coin would be valued at $21.78. At 14.29% average, 1 ICX would be $17.29. With an overly optimistic 35% dominance, 1 ICX would be $42.35.
With all of this in mind, I would not be surprised to see ICX hit $20 once KRW trading goes live. Keep in mind the above calculations do not account for trading with BTC, ETH, and other fiat pairs. With these other trading pairs, a 3-5x multiplier should be applied. This gives ICX a proper valuation of ~$50 in the short term.
Secondly, these numbers are derived from Korea's working population only. It's common knowledge that many of Korea's youth and elderly are also getting into the crypto market.
Lastly, these numbers reflect the current crypto market cap of ~$650 billion. Many people are speculating the total crypto market cap will hit $1.5 trillion in 2018. $300/ICX is not unrealistic over the next two years. That's a 272,627% ROI for early ICO investors!