CCTV Finance: South Korea's virtual currency enters a cold winter, mining machines shut down, investors leave

South Korea's virtual currency-related industries have entered an unprecedented cold winter. At the beginning of 2018, the cost of mining one Ethereum coin at an Ethereum mine was about 240,000 won (about 1,477 yuan). At that time, the market price reached a historical high of 2.35 million won (about 14,000 yuan), which was more than 30% higher than the international market. For this reason, the mine started nearly 1,000 mining machines for mining. However, Ethereum fluctuated violently and eventually fell below the cost price in November 2018. The mine was once forced to shut down all mining machines. As of the end of December 2018, the prices of major virtual currencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum had fallen by more than 80% from their highs during the year, and investors suffered heavy losses and left the market in large numbers. According to data from the Bank of Korea, in the global virtual currency market in the second half of 2018, the proportion of Korean won settlement transactions had fallen to 5.8%, less than half of the level in the same period of 2017; the premium rate in the Korean market also plummeted from 40% at the beginning of 2018 to about 1% recently. (CCTV Finance)