The regulatory negotiations taking place in the South Korean government are seen by many investors as a threat. Worry over the possibility of a cryptocurrency trading ban has scared off the less robust, but some cryptoveterans remain defiant. Since the market is still in its youngish days, circumventing restrictions is likely to be relatively easy.

Spelling errors can rock the world, sometimes, and HODLing was one of them. Holding Bitcoin in its early days was sometimes a white-water experience, and a mis-spelt meme resulted in the new verb, to HODL, or Hold On for Dear Life. The middle of January was no exception for HODLers, when the likelihood of SK and Chinese regulatory moves caused the market to lose some $200bn, well over a third of its previous value.

When China shut down its local cryptocurrency exchanges in September 2017, it caused Bitcoin to drop by 50%, but the Chicago futures markets opening books on the currency in December caused an eight-fold rise in price to over $20,000.

An anonymous SK student suggests that in the event of a shutdown of local exchanges, investors could open accounts outside the country. The big advantage of the distributed ledger system is that the current anonymity of trading partners, and the system's capacity to transfer digital assets globally, makes imposing restrictions difficult without a worldwide consensus.