What?

10 cents? Now that's a bold statement, you might think. Well it's true. Just look at the numbers I'm about to share and you will see my point. Even though we are experiencing a nice uptrend again I'm not that excited about it as I again see the same pattern unfolding. I would be more excited to find out who is behind it and why they are doing it. Now let's get into it.

I've first noticed this strange phenomenon when SBD was pumping to 15$. Back then there were only 6 million SBD in circulation and the trading volumes were in the 100-150 million $ range per 24 hours. 90% of that volume was comming from UPbit and was traded in KRW (Korean Republic Won). Now tell me how is that possible and what was the point of the back and forth trading more than 20x then what's available in circulation.

Since then I've been following Steem/SBD markets and I can tell you that any time there was an uptrend you could see Korea having most of the trading volumes and highest prices (all cryptos are more expensive in Korea). Making me come to a conclusion that Korea is our spaceship, driving us to the moon. Every single time Steem/SBD is going up, they have 60% to 95% of the 24h volumes. Also when they pump, they pump it real good, with upwards of 100 million traded in 24 hours. That wouldn't be strange for Bitcoin or any of the top 10 cryptocurrencies, but it is for Steem/SBD because it usually has around 1-10 million in 24h volumes on normal days.

Another pump and dump?

The latest uptrend is no different. Korea rocking our world again with some insane volumes. Images below were taken 4 days ago, in the middle of a green week for all cryptos including Steem and SBD and day before the floodgates opened, maxing out at 190 million in 24h volumes.

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With 60% of Steem's and 92% of SBD's 24 hour volumes coming from Korea, it's obvious who is the driving force behind this pump. A question pops up and it's: "What would the price of Steem be if Korea wasn't here?" That's anybody's guess, but it surely wouldn't be more than a dollar if you ask me.

I've done some research since I first noticed this but I failed to pinpoint to a single person or organization that might be behind the enormous volumes.

Top three suspects are:

• Korean cryptocurrency enthusiast that don't want to pay taxes so they use some loophole to go around it and part of it is going through Steem or SBD because of the 3s transaction times and 0$ fees

• Steemit.inc pumping the price up before SMTs go live or just to speed up the development (when Steem/SBD are worth more, everyone is more motivated to work and produce content as they earn more + they would be able to pay the developers more with spending less tokens)

• Big traders that are able to manipulate the markets to make profits

Out of the three I think the first is most likely to be the one as we all know Korea has been suffering a great deal off oppresion from the system in form of regulation and taxation (theft). That drove a lot of investors to other countries but I think that some are still there and have found a way to go around it through Steem/SBD.

Steemit.inc is the least likely to be the cause but it's still an option to consider.

Big traders could also be on this as they might hve figured out how to take advantage of the markets with their enormeous amount of money.

Anyway, whoever it is, thanks for allowing us to earn more!

Let me know what you think

Who and why is pumping up Steem/SBD?