Bitcoin Forum

Bitcoin’s brutal start to the year is proving especially painful in South Korea.

While prices for the cryptocurrency are falling on major exchanges around the world, nowhere have the declines been faster than in Asia’s fourth-largest economy. The losses have erased a 51 percent premium for Bitcoin on Korean venues, sending prices back in line with those on international exchanges for the first time in seven weeks on Friday.

The so-called kimchi premium had been so persistent -- and so unusual for a large market -- that traders named it after Korea’s staple side dish. While its disappearance is partly explained by selling pressure from arbitragers, it also reflects a dramatic reversal of sentiment in one of the world’s most frenzied markets for cryptocurrencies.

Bitcoin has tumbled more than 60 percent from its high in Korea after the country’s regulators took several steps over the past two months to restrict trading and said they may ban cryptocurrency exchanges outright. Policy makers around the world have been moving to rein in the mania surrounding digital assets amid concerns over excessive speculation, money laundering, tax evasion and fraud.

“The bubble in crytpocurrencies has burst” in Korea, said Yeol-mae Kim, an analyst at Eugene Investment & Securities Co. in Seoul.

The kimchi premium began shrinking in mid-January as fears of a regulatory clampdown escalated. Selling by arbitragers -- who have been buying Bitcoin on international venues to offload at a higher price in Korea -- also played a role, although the country’s capital controls and anti-money-laundering rules made it difficult to execute such transactions in bulk.

Bitcoin traded at about 9.1 million won ($8,449) in early Korean trading on Friday, according to a CryptoCompare index tracking the country’s major exchanges. That compared with the $8,601 composite price on Bloomberg, which is derived from venues including Bitstamp and Coinbase’s GDAX exchange. When the kimchi premium reached its peak in January, Bitcoin’s price was about $7,500 higher in Korea.

The country’s cooling frenzy has been reflected in declining activity on domestic exchanges. Data compiled by CryptoCompare.com show that volumes have dropped by about 85 percent from December highs.

Read more here: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-02-02/bitcoin-s-huge-arbitrage-play-just-vanished-as-korea-bubble-pops

this is a huge fall and it only shows that this market is very dangerous and people need to have some psychological training before they think about investing their money, is a market very dominated by news, if any government says something like "ban bitcoin" is enough for the market to react very badly to the point of fall being more than 20% and people who are not prepared end up losing huge amounts of money

It's not just exchanges in South Korea, if we take a look at volume, yes it is due to they have bigger trading volume
But, if you check the price, bitcoin exchange rate in there still higher than in your country right now, bitcoin has fallen significantly but it recover faster in SK as bitcoin crash started from the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission which has subpoena USDT and Bitfinex.
No matter what, everything that rises rapidly in a short time, will come the time it falls down to the ground.
One thing is positive as the result; we can buy cheaper bitcoin and altcoins as these coins will recover in April or May, the cycle always repeated.

The collapse of prices in the cryptocurrency market, I am calm. A year ago, the bitcoin price was about $ 2000 and everyone is happy. I returned to Fiat money that has invested in bitcoin long ago. The entire stock of my coins is my profit. Now I earn exclusively in bitcoins. At this price, too, can earn. Only now, in order to make a profit you need to work. That's good. People should have the trading skills to live in the world of cryptocurrency.

Painful in South Korea? It's not painful at all if that market is brought back to reality. It's mind boggling that they even managed to make the price gap between them and the western market grow that large. I am happy that this correction happened, because this shakeout is what we needed to make people aware of the fact that get rich quick mentality won't bring you anywhere. It's insane having read about people taking out mortgages to have all this capital invested in Bitcoin or other crypto currencies. From there I am actually thankful for this correction to occur -- whether you like to admit it or not, the entire market was extremely overbought.

Some kind of pain is bound to occur when the irrational exuberance ends. At least now the South Korean government can stop losing sleep over how the crypto craze is affecting its general population and whether any tough measures are required. The drop in prices has been as drastic as the rise to the top.

These low crypto prices wont last long. I compare this years january crash to last year's. 2017 january btc price was mucho sexy, i would love to have bought some crypto then.... thank god i can buy it this season! crypto will give us the wealth we deserve.

If we can cheer about the price going up a lot in a very short period of time, we should accept how it goes down afterwards as well. Don't forget that the price needs far less time to sink down than it needs to climb up.

If this correction feels like a horrible event, it's probably an indication that you bought too late, invested with money that you need in your private life, or you significantly over-invested ~ these are the most common mistakes.

Just relax, let the market correct and do its volatility thingy, and when we're a month or so away from now, people will regret not having bought at current levels while they had the chance to do so.