<p>Bitcoin is trading near $66,000 levels in South Korea as "Kimchi Premium" has returned.</p> <p><a href="https://www.theblockresearch.com/regulatory-overview-south-korea-88206">Kimchi Premium</a> is the spread between bitcoin's price on South Korean crypto exchanges and Western exchanges.</p> <p>Bitcoin is currently <a href="https://in.tradingview.com/symbols/BTCKRW/">trading at around $66,200 on Bithumb</a>, according to TradingView. That is whopping about 15% or $9,000 higher than bitcoin's price of around $57,000 <a href="https://in.tradingview.com/symbols/BTCUSD/">on Coinbase.</a></p> <p><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-100491" src="https://www.tbstat.com/wp/uploads/2021/04/sk.jpeg" alt="" width="1872" height="1178" /></p> <p><a href="https://in.tradingview.com/symbols/ETHKRW/">Ether (ETH) is also trading higher at around $2,350</a> on Bithumb compared to $2,020 <a href="https://in.tradingview.com/symbols/ETHUSD/">on Coinbase</a>, according to TradingView.</p> <p>The Kimchi Premium suggests rising demand for bitcoin and ether in South Korea as the cryptocurrency market continues to soar worldwide.</p> <p>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 <a href="https://www.theblockresearch.com/regulatory-overview-south-korea-88206">local regulations.</a></p> <p>Korean citizens also cannot buy cryptocurrencies at lower prices on global exchanges because these exchanges don't support Korean won. <a href="https://www.theblockcrypto.com/post/89198/binance-korea-shutting-down-crypto-exchange">Binance</a> and <a href="https://www.theblockcrypto.com/linked/99073/okex-korea-shutting-down-april-2021">OKEx</a> had local exchanges in Korea, but both shut them down recently.</p> <p>The Kimchi Premium <a href="https://people.ucalgary.ca/~alehar/KimchiPremium26.pdf">first appeared</a> 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.</p>