Why isn't anyone arbitraging Korean exchanges?

[wuclx]

It's pretty well-known, that most cryptocurrencies are traded at higher prices on Korean exchanges such as Bithumb and Upbit in the Crypto/KRW pairs. Compare for example the XRP prices across exchanges.
This got especially popular when CoinMarketCap removed Korean exchanges from its price averaging, leading to a small flash crash of the whole market.

What's the reason for this and why isn't it exploited by arbitrage traders? Is withdrawing KRW a problem?

[Beerwizzard]

They also have like 1-2$k over the market peice per BTC. I havent tried those exchanges but I bet that they have extremely moderated KYC. Korean exchanges are even excluded from the coinmarketcap overall BTC rate because they are not a part of the market and everyone can't buy BTC for that price. I've read on the news that some other local exchanges in poor countries (nigeria, venezuela etc.) have up to x2 from the normal price.

[wuclx]

Can't the verified users of such exchanges sign up on foreign exchanges, buy cheap crypto and deposit it on the local exchanges with higher rates? Or is that impossible?

[Flypanda]

It's not easy to take out money from South Korea, unless you have friends who can spend money over there.

[carter937]

It's pretty well-known, that most cryptocurrencies are traded at higher prices on Korean exchanges such as Bithumb and Upbit in the Crypto/KRW pairs. Compare for example the XRP prices across exchanges.
This got especially popular when CoinMarketCap removed Korean exchanges from its price averaging, leading to a small flash crash of the whole market.

What's the reason for this and why isn't it exploited by arbitrage traders? Is withdrawing KRW a problem?

I know that Korea is a country with very strict rules about this market in general and bitcoin in particular. My friends live in Korea, they have to buy bitcoin at a higher price in other countries to $ 2000 a small number, in addition they have to pay extremely high taxes. These things show that you should not participate in the Korean market.