Kimchi Premium on Bitcoin & Ethereum Aiming for 15%

It was earlier this year that the cryptocurrency market started seeing the Korean premium make its reappearance, which was popular in 2017. As we have reported, the premium on both BTC and ETH has been uptrending.

The Kimchi premium on Bitcoin is currently making its way to 15%, the same as Ether ETH -0.80% Ethereum / USD ETHUSD $ 2,169.69
-$17.36-0.80% Volume 22.03 b Change -$17.36 Open $2,169.69 Circulating 115.45 m Market Cap 250.49 b 10 h Keep Network to Launch An Updated Bitcoin to Ethereum Bridge, tBTC Protocol V2 16 h Topps Launching its Flagship Baseball Card Collection in NFTs in Partnership with MLB 18 h BNB Flying to Achieve $100 Bln Market Cap Ahead of Coin Burn & Amidst 'BSC DeFi Summer' and XRP XRP 22.02% XRP / USD XRPUSD $ 1.63
$0.3622.02% Volume 17.42 b Change $0.36 Open $1.63 Circulating 45.4 b Market Cap 73.96 b 3 d Ripple, CoinShares, ConSenSys Commit To ‘Green’ Crypto Practice In Latest Partnership 3 d Revolut Adds 11 New 'Hot' Cryptos Including DeFi Tokens for UK and EU Users 5 d South Koreans Are Trading XRP & BTT More than BTC and Ether . Zhu Su, CEO at Three Arrows Capital said,

“Think folks are underestimating the reawakening of Korean demand for cryptoassets. Premiums are over 10% now but can easily go to 100% given that it's even harder to arbitrage than last time. This, in turn, creates a large feedback loop for overall prices.”

Source: CryptoQuant

While during the last bull run, South Koreans were much more involved in the crypto market, this time, the volume on Korean crypto exchanges is under 2% of the global crypto volume.

While they may not be matching up with their crypto counterparts, the crypto transaction rate in the country surged past the transaction rate of its national stock exchange last month. Ki-Young Ju, CEO of CryptoQuant noted,

“Korean government prohibits derivative trading in Korean exchanges, so the only way to get rich in the short term is to get a ride on shitcoin pumpings.”

One Twitter user noted that Koreans are busy with the regional coins this time as they didn’t ride the DeFi rally.

Korean crypto may not be undervalued, but it is certainly under acknowledged. People asked where are the Koreans this cycle? They're investing in their *own* protocols

30 day returns$LUNA 79.5%$MIR 38.4$$KLAY 252%$CTC 589%$BELT Just started

— HanSolar (@hansolar21) March 12, 2021

The government is also focused on blockchain technology and in a stimulus package last year, they focused on the “digital new deal.” From online voting systems to allocate welfare to low-income citizens, they are using blockchain technology for a number of initiatives.