Bitcoin Forum

The price of btc in South Korea is over $1000 the global average. It has been stated that the price per BTC in the region has reached upwards of $3500-3800 across the country’s top three exchanges and a lot of traders are finding significant arbitrage opportunities due to this trend in S/Korea. Also, these 3 popular trading platforms are processing roughly $200 million USD worth of Korean Won-KRW/BTC trades daily, and from all indications, the central bank’s and government’s friendly attitude in bitcoin community in South Korea is thriving greatly.

Apparently with this development, this country is one to watch with respect to bitcoin. What do you think about this explosion in the bitcoin world in South Korea and its global impact?

Reference: https://news.bitcoin.com/south-korea-bitcoin-1000-global/

I don't really get it as to why the price in Korea is far much higher than what the rest of the world is. It is like a thousand dollars than what it should like for an example the trade for BTC to USD is 1BTC=$2600 while in Korea its 1BTC=$3600 (this is not the actual more like an example). Anyway, it's good that Korea had joined the world of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

This shows that Korea has joined the world of Bitcoin and other crypto. And I am very surprised by the high values and differences
I think that value will be the value that I meet in the future
.

Mt gox inc?
Looks similar for sure.

It's really a huge spread, the traders can make much more money if they do arbitrage, and of pretty high amounts if they do it properly.

Maybe there is simply not enough bitcoin to cover the demand and this has create momentarily a market that is trying to do their best to get as much bitcoin as possible regardless of the price, maybe something is happening in South Korea like political instability or something.

I think that one of the big caveats for this is that Korea may or may not have a way for foreigners to get their money out of those exchanges, and that's why there aren't people pouncing on the opportunities offered by the Korean markets. I don't know their financial systems so I'm essentially speaking out of my ass, but I think that's the only reason for that happening. They should be seeing way cheaper prices otherwise, since the spread between their exchanges and western exchanges is, as you said, insane.

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(South) Korea is a country of some 45,000,000 people, so not THAT large (even though they are very technologically sophisticated).  Korea will be a significant player, but probably not a HUGE one in BTC.  Should SAMSUNG (for example) decide to make mining equipment, however, THAT would be a major signal.

It may be that it is HARD to buy BTC there in Korea.  Koreans are welcome to PM me should they want to buy some (we do business, buying auto parts for Peru, with Korean companies).  *References could be provided*

It's because the selling percentage there is very low and they need to adjust the buying percentage and that's why 1 bitcoin to them is equals to $3k+ and with this movement of Korean exchange it made others follow because of the arbitrage that can be taken the advantage of a lot of traders but that's really a lot.

As someone else said it may be hard for foreigners to get their money out as well. I believe there is a maximum someone is able to wire out of the country. So even if you can make the arb the money would be stuck there until you figure an alternative way to get it out.

Before there was no Korean or Japanese demand, and now there is.

there may be demand but that price is down to its market being a closed loop. they have capital controls and not much bitcoin. i don't think people should be paying much attention to it unless it opens up.

When an exchange has that kind of a price differential to the rest of the exchanges it means that something is up. Traders are not able to arbitrage between exchanges easily. As European Central Bank said the market is basically closed right now, capital controls are still existent in s. korea. It's not easy for money to flow in an out, thus resulting in an abnormally inflated price of btc.

But this just proves that btc is superior the fiat as it is global, you don't need to worry about capital controls from the government. And south koreans probably are starting to realize that and getting into btc fast.

That's nice. This only shows that South korea
has joined the countries who accepts bitcoin.

i see in the news that people in south korea have using bitcoin too and i see that they give a good support for bitcoin itself and maybe they make a good affect for the price. i think the price getting high is because supply and demand is not balance and this make bitcoin is too expensive to buy. we hope that in the future, there will be many country and many people that will followed south korea and japan to using bitcoin so bitcoin will be spread in many place.

The reason is that they have restrictions on moving funds around and that results in a lack of arbitrage opportunities for traders out there. When there is a lack of arbitrage opportunity traders can't take advantage of exchange rates between different exchanges and that means the price will stay up there on Korea's exchange as nobody is able to take adavantege of it.

I wouldn't say that bitcoin is getting huge in South Korea, just like india when the cash crunch hit the btc price also rose a lot on indian markets. It's just regulations taking place in South Korea that's driving this spike without any other exchange following.

Bitcoin is really a big things, it got a good investment value and it got a good potential that can be implemented in any sectors, and now South Korea realize it and got a huge advantage from bitcoin, I also surprises when I see the price is higher than other country, but I think it is the same thing happened in China where the price is higher than any place but the trader can't take advantage of it because the trade got difficulty to withdraw the fund

Supply and demand.  The demand is so high there is not enough BTC to cover it.

Now I get it. I feel satisfied now with your answer. So the market of Bitcoin differs from one country to another but Korea is too much that's why because of the lack of arbitrage. It is a good opportunity for Koreans to start saving up Bitcoin and sell it when the arbitrage have found its way to their country. Surely they will earn a good profit from that.

BTC will recover to 3000 easily.. Koreans bought them at 4000, they have strong hands  

We cannot see anymore the thriving price in south korea and almost all exchanges of bitcoin around the world has experienced a one hell of a dump in the market. But we are still lucky since it did not went down below 2000$. I just hope that south korea will not panic over this dump and will continue to buy more bitcoins and will see the dump as an opportunity to buy more bitcoins.

I read that korean exchanges have long term withdrawal limits (like you have to wait 2-4 months before you can get to a higher tier).

Plus, their govt. has strict AML/forex policies.

I have heard some information about it, and I find it hard to understand, I'm curious and I want to know why the value of bitcoin here is higher than in other parts of the world, and the difference up To $ 1000. Despite the high market demand, the bitcoin value will increase rapidly, but it is hard to believe that the difference is too great.

This shows that Korea has high demands of bitcoin apart from other country. Bitcoin is really big that many investors are into use of it. This is also an advantage for them since Btc price is high truly they can save and sell when exchange available.

Changelly was selling 1 BTC for more than 4000 USD yesterday.

So how come the price here is so far down?

I understand this problem, the need of everyone high will lead to the value of bitcoin surge. But with a $ 1,000 difference, this is a horrific and surprising number. Why can this difference exist, and is it still going on? Clearly they can buy bitcoin from anywhere in the world, and they do not need competition.

The price of bitcoin in korea is very crazy because it is almost x2 from the average price of all the exchangers in the market and i think one of the bubble price creator are most in the asian countries but now the price of bitcoin is dumping and adjusting for the real value and soon we will able to buy cheaper bitcoins and hold them for long term 8).

Hopefully Korean high price can push bitcoin to move up again. Well if not let the alts move up then. Weird thing is everything is full of red blood. :(

I think it can not, the needs of korea though high, but it is very small compared to the world.

South korea began to join bitcoin and other crypto, and therefore I would be surprised to see and hear it.
It turns out south korea is starting to find the future with bitcoin and other crypto.

Asian countries have been into bitcoin usage long ago, but the user scale is very low. Now slowly this too has started to change with more investment coming into bitcoin from investors around the world as well governments have started supporting it. As a part south Korea is already into the plans of generating their own coin. Now recent days price might have attracted a huge user base.

If it is true the price of bitcoin in south korea can soar as high as the value mentioned,  This makes a lot of people believe it or not with the high price increase in korea.
Which is the question why why only in korea that experience price increase while in other country is not like that.

it's quite interesting indeed, Also in addition to SK, China also shown great interest in bitcoin and altcoins before and are one of the major players (in bitcoin world population), Considering how these nations are technically innovated Bitcoin and virtual currencies won't be like a riddle to them.

That's my idea too, perhaps exchange don't offer korean currency to USD or the like, anyway the cheap and more acceptable method is to go to a bank and exchange it before transferring since the fees are just a small percentage.. Also Korea isn't china so that's probably have no legal issues linked.

Perhaps it involves the KYC approval within the Korea district. I think that the people over there have an issue with Bitcoin because of their banking system so that is why the premium of Bitcoin is really high over there.
Some people also state that the price of Bitcoin is high in Korea due to their credit system, I am not too sure how that works. Bitcoin is the same wherever though 1 btc is pretty much just 1 btc.

Yes, everywhere including south korea has faced a dump in bitcoin prices but what we dont see is bitcoin prices flew from 2000$ to 2800$ In a matter of few days, which was not natural behavior. Its good we are still over 2000$ and now we will move naturally towards 3000$ which i think is more favorable for all the bitcoin holders as we all need a steady bitcoin price increase and not a high pump followed a by high dump.

Yes i also think that korea is a small country compare to other countries like america and china so the people or the community of the bitcoin users is much smaller. So the moved of the stock of bitcoin on the market is not that fat making it value to become stable on that its movement and users is much equal to each other. Korea does not have the capacity to also accept foreign transaction because its currency has a low value so making people to used exchanges is way more low. But the move of making a specific country have bitcoin a impact is a great news to the development of bitcoin on its transaction and price.

Arbitrage in South Korea for foreigners can be virtually impossible not unless you can be in South Korea yourself and you have people helping you. Anyway, this whole thing shows that S.Korea is a place to watch for when it comes to Bitcoin transactions and soon this country can be a big player in the cryptocurrency market. Countries who chose to ignore Bitcoin can be salivating when they learned of the many advantages for an early adopter of this new revolution.

south korea isn't the country with huge populations but $200 million daily transactions for bitcoin is huge for me and probably these amount still possible to increase soon however i'm so glad to see another country consider bitcoin as valuable but i could not figure out why bitcoin price so high in this country

It seems that most elites of South Korea are buying bitcoin.  As stated on the previous post, trading is somehow close loops making it difficult to do arbitrage trading that is why price of bitcoin in that country goes that high.  More demand and less supply means inflated price.  Even our country's number one bitcoin exchange has a crazy price, taking advantage of South Korean price as their selling price and taking the lower priced reference as their buying price. 

I see it more as a manipulation rather than anything at it's best. Bitcoins are not legal in North Korea and South is making such a amazing use of it, that only makes me wonder whose money is it? Is it the rich white folks or big businessman who have put their money and making a kill, the difference is always manipulated, I don't know what will happen in future but such manipulation is not at all good for the Bitcoin industry.

South Korea would be a great player/asset in the world of Bitcoin. It will contribute to the huge demand for bitcoin, thus, making the price higher. With this type of acceptance, it will not be avoided that the neighboring countries around it will later on accepts bitcoin (if they are not yet, fully). This type of acceptance has always a good impact globally, concerning bitcoin, regardless of what the specific country is.

The demand for bitcoin in Korea must higher than other regions. people there might not know hot to buy bitcoin by credit cards so that they can not buy Bitcoin from the USA or the EU. Therefore, they have to buy bitcoin with the higher price than usual

Indeed, I guess the most promising growing nations in eastern asia have shown tremendous support for BTC -not the governments, but the people-, Japan was always a stronghold for BTC even before MTGOX, China was a leading reason for the improvement of price and the increased buying for years and now in addition South Korea is doing the same. I am curious though if the possibilities of war is one of the reasons in South Korea and people saving in an international currency...

South Korea is a closed market
No impact on international markets

That just means whatever their currency is is worth about 60% less than the official exchange rates say it is.

Korea is extremely promising I think and can be a utopia for BTC if things go down positively, The demand is high for a reliable international currency for the citizens in preparation for future issues with neighbors, also being a high-well educated community, knowing about technical aspects of BTC wouldn't be hard.

How would you take advantage through arbitrage though if you're not in South Korea. Maybe sell your BTC for USDT (Tether) on a Korean Exchange and then move it to cash out in fiat of your country's origin.

South Korea, being among the more progressive Asian countries always have this mindset of not being want to be left behind by their negihboring countries, Japan and China, so they are always in step, if not advanced in some aspects. So it is really no surprise that as the bitcoin trend in Japan is slowly being felt, chances are South Korea wouldn’t be far behind.

I just heard that south korea has a lot of bitcoin demand and now it's big

Finally, Korea is joining the bandwagon of BTC heavily, surprised it took them wrong considering Japan was one of the best bitcoin related countries while China was the cause of the previous $1000 peak, Finally SK entering the market..

Its very difficult to buy bitcoin in Korea through a non-korean exchange... if anyone wanna collaborate and make some arbitrage, I'm in Korea and very interested in jumping on this before the gap closes

nah they don't have enough liquidity to do that, mtgox was an exchange that basically held all the funds, in one single spot, here they have their own exchange and they are trading with their own value for bitcoin


could be that they have some restrictions to buy abroad from other country and receive money in their bank account, could also be that is more expensive for them to buy abroad for wire transfer and all

Some people are saying the population totals for South Korea is too low to have a significant impact. I differ from them, because it is all about percentages. China might have the highest population in the world, but they might also have the lowest adoption percentage.

If mass adoption takes place in a small country, it will have a bigger impact than when a country with a high population use Bitcoin is small percentages. So this is still good news, if their government is Bitcoin friendly. ^smile^

I agree with you.

However the case with South Korea isn't that they have a lot of adopters - i think it's more likely because there are strict controls on money flowing out of the country which is why the price seems so inflated.

China is in a similar situation, if you look at its prices on localbitcoins you'll see the price of bitcoin in USD terms around 100-200 USD higher than the average USD/BTC exchange rate. This is why some people think that BTC reflects the true price of CNY.

That's exactly the right thought, despite the high demand for bitcoin in Korea, which pushed the bitcoin value up to a record $ 4,000, but it was completely unlikely to impact the world bitcoin market. , Because they are a small country.

You didn't get the point. Small country or not for as long as their volume is high enough they can influence the world market. They are even probably the main reason bitcoin reached 4,000 few days ago. Plus you have to consider South Korea is a very rich country with probably no poor citizens unlike China and US.

I've never doubted that South Korea will get into the bitcoin story, it is a very technology developed country, tho that price difference is interesting. So I must ask, is the price of around 3800 on their exchanges for buying and selling bitcoin? If it was for selling too, then would I be able to sell the bitcoin there for a higher profit? I mean, is there anything to prevent someone for buying a bitcoin here for 2200$ and selling there for 3800$?

I never thought that Korea would be the most bitcoin country in the world, it never even mentioned in the forum, but as soon as it was accepted by the government, people tried trying to own bitcoin, this has pushed bitcoin prices soaring.

Now that bitcoin has been adjusted, and it is entering a stable period, its value is still under control, it certainly can not reach $ 3,000, or if possible, it will not happen in this year.

well with how the quick pumped happen before we can't say it will not happen this year we almost touch it a week ago and if pressure will
push the traders and investors to bring newcomers in this system we will be able to see much bigger chances to reach 3k. just needed to
believe and stay positive.

we should contact south koreans and sell them our BTC haha, kidding aside, BTC has a huge impact most especially to those developed countries like japan, china and korea, they know well the future of crypto currency and maybe that is the reason why BTC is gaining more popularity.

anyway to sell my btc to korean markets lol ... nvm i still didnt understand why btc price only high in specific region ? are their government affect that ? im still hoping worldwide market as high as korean market but it seems kinda stable on $2000 , well good job koreans  ;D

Hopefully with the added growth of bitcoin around the world my country can follow the development of bitcoin ;D

Whenever any country accept bitcoin, than i feel good to know because it is good news for bitcoin and also for us. It is beginning step of bitcoin achievement, I really want to see when my country accept bitcoin as the other countries accept it in official level. But i am confused to know that in Korea bitcoin is equal more than $3000?  Is it possible? 

Bitcoin demand is gradually increasing in south korea.It seems that south korea wood soon go beyond japan in bitcoin adoption.Due to heavy increase in demand for bitcoins,south korean bitcoin traders are facing buy orders of $4500.South korea would also contribute more for bitcoin progress and adoption all over the world just like japan.

Probably many southern Koreans are joining together bitcoin let alone bitcoin already received in the country itself, bitcoin find its market.

I guess many people in South Korea became more interested in bitcoin especially now that the economy in Korea dramatically increases because of their Kpop artists. Through Korean dramas, Kpop songs, trendy food that they have and so on, many people will get attracted to their industry. Furthermore, bitcoin perhaps is getting huge in their country for the investors are also investing a lot of money those things mentioned.

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HOW do we learn more about BTC in Korea?  I have not found a decent link that gives Korea & BTC info.

I offered to pay $130 to one of our Korean bearing suppliers for samples & catalogs by BTC (yes they charged me for samples).  NO, only a wire transfer.  $40 for that $130 when I was down there in Peru.  So not even the ONE  commercial guy who I have mentioned BTC to was interested.

Seems to me also that we haven't heard any news from South Korea but from the last time I checked trading volumes, South Koreans has huge volumes. I'm also not aware that bitcoin has been legal or been embrace by the government. So find it interesting again why South Koreans are pouring money into the market.

Well it's like Korea is inclined with technology. Samsung, Hyundai, KIA and some of technology's top brands came from Korea. Right now they're producing the top volumes on many coins especially ETH and ETC.

well bitcoin  is now using all over the word and now all countries are aware of  its benefits   as well as coria is concerned it must be true that the prices of bitcoin is now at huge level and its increasing gradually  more and more hope in future it will become the most famous currency not only in curia but every where. 

I'm checking transactions in ethereum and bitcoin which was done by using KRW (Korean National Currency) and this is just booming. Ethereum transactions have huge potential in South korean exhanges as I see.

Has anyone had success in registering with any of the large KOR exchanges while being abroad. I failed with Bitkor on count of not having a Korean bank account

Japan has seen some huge arbs open up too

First,it was considered that Japan would play a dominant position in bitcoin.But surprisingly,south korea started to gain attention globally due to its high increase in demand for bitcoin.Last week,when bitcoin was traded at $2800 world wide,bitcoin was sold at $4,500 in south korean exchanges.It seems that soon south korea would become a technology hub.

Yes you are right, it seems that bitcoin has already introduce to them and many of them are now earning it. I have been read awhile ago that even the stores in south korea has been accepting bitcoin as payment and even airlines too if im not mistaken. I hope that my country will accept bitcoin too and be part of our currency.

That could explain what has been happening and the high interest that BTC has generated in those places, and if they are taking interest directly is because they see something interesting on it, in such a way  that they are buying above the market price, also  somebody mentioned the India that the price was also above.

Not only from Korean exchanges you could see that change from every exchanges ,Japan China etc and so is the reason we are seeing a big rally in all the alt coins,with scaling around the corner it is interesting to see how people will react to that,i want to price to be neutral till the scaling and i hope it will be like that.

This is a part of Crypto I don't understand yet. You say the global average is 1,000 less than the approximate 3,500 S. Korea is seeing. If S. Korea is figured into the global average, wouldn't the global average automatically be adjusted to reflect S. Korea's high price to the point where we wouldn't see such a discrepancy?

If it's a global economy, it's global. You shouldn't be differentiating the prices between countries other than using them ALL to figure the average. Right? Or do I have this part of it wrong?