The volatility of South Korea's KOSPI index exceeds 60%, higher than Bitcoin, with leveraged ETFs further amplifying stock price fluctuations.

BlockBeats news, on July 21, according to Bloomberg, the volatility of South Korea's KOSPI index has exceeded 60% this year, nearly twice that of Japan's Nikkei 225 index and even higher than Bitcoin. The Korea Exchange has triggered the circuit breaker mechanism 7 times until mid-July this year, while in 2025 it was not triggered once, and in 2024 it was triggered only once.

Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix currently account for more than 50% of the KOSPI index's weighting, making index funds largely concentrated bets on the AI chip market. When the KOSPI reached a record high at the end of June, more than 650 of the 831 constituent stocks were still down, indicating that the index's performance is highly reliant on a few large chip stocks.

The scale of Korean leveraged ETFs has also expanded rapidly. According to Goldman Sachs data, the assets of Korean leveraged ETFs tracking indices and single stocks have increased from 5 billion USD at the beginning of the year to more than 40 billion USD. These related products, along with Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, have recently accounted for more than 70% of the daily trading volume in the Korean stock market, further amplifying share price volatility. On July 16, South Korea's regulatory authorities suspended the listing of new single-stock leveraged products.