Bitcoin’s price on global markets is hovering around $59,000 today. But not if you’re in South Korea: there, a single Bitcoin trades for $66,633 at the time of writing.
The Bitcoin / Korean won pairing on two of the country’s largest exchanges, Bithumb and Korbit, shows that Bitcoin’s price is currently 75,166,000 South Korean won, equivalent to $66,633.
That’s a difference of 15% compared to Bitcoin / USD pairing on global exchanges, such as Binance and Coinbase. That galloping gap is called the kimchi premium, named after the Korean dish of pickled vegetables.
The kimchi premium occurs because South Korean exchanges don’t have enough crypto to meet the huge demand. That’s due to the country’s restriction on capital flows, analysts told Decrypt.
South Korea’s government makes it cumbersome to send the country’s national currency, the won, to other countries, making it tricky for crypto exchanges to keep money flowing through them.
The delays create a backlog of de
Źródło: https://decrypt.co/63948/south-koreas-capital-controls-have-pushed-bitcoins-price-to-66600
