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 6.67% Ethereum / USD ETHUSD $ 4,127.40
$275.306.67% Volume 20.03 b Change $275.30 Open $4,127.40 Circulating 118.01 m Market Cap 487.07 b 6 h Cosmos Unveils New Blockchain, Sagan, A Canary Network to Allow Developers to Run Tests And Experiments 10 h Massive Retail Demand for First Bitcoin Futures ETF Made its Debut As the 2nd Highest Traded Fund In History 1 d Interactive Brokers Launches Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Crypto Trading for RIAs in the US and XRP XRP 3.94% XRP / USD XRPUSD $ 1.14
$0.043.94% Volume 3.38 b Change $0.04 Open $1.14 Circulating 46.88 b Market Cap 53.27 b 4 d Ripple Joins The Digital Pound Foundation to Help In The Development of A CBDC In the United Kingdom 6 d Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) to List Crypto-Focused ETF on 'Growing' Investor Demand 1 w Ripple And NelNet Join Forces to Fast-Track Crypto’s March to Renewable Energy . 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.