Bitcoin is trading near $66,000 in South Korea as 'Kimchi Premium' returns

Bitcoin • April 5, 2021, 4:25AM EDT
The Block

Bitcoin is trading near $66,000 levels in South Korea as "Kimchi Premium" has returned.

Kimchi Premium is the spread between bitcoin's price on South Korean crypto exchanges and Western exchanges.

Bitcoin is currently trading at around $66,200 on Bithumb, according to TradingView. That is whopping about 15% or $9,000 higher than bitcoin's price of around $57,000 on Coinbase.

Ether (ETH) is also trading higher at around $2,350 on Bithumb compared to $2,020 on Coinbase, according to TradingView.

The Kimchi Premium suggests rising demand for bitcoin and ether in South Korea as the cryptocurrency market continues to soar worldwide.

While there is Kimchi Premium, that doesn't mean one can buy bitcoin or ether at a lower price globally and sell it at a higher price in South Korea. That is because Korean crypto exchanges don't accept foreign clients due to local regulations.

Korean citizens also cannot buy cryptocurrencies at lower prices on global exchanges because these exchanges don't support Korean won. Binance and OKEx had local exchanges in Korea, but both shut them down recently.

The Kimchi Premium first appeared in 2016, according to the University of Calgary. Between 2016 and 2018, the Kimchi Premium averaged nearly 4.80% and was as high as almost 55% in January 2018, per the report.