Bloomberg: South Korea’s BTC kimchi premium returns at 1% as sentiment improves

South Korean retail appetite for risk assets is reviving as the crypto market recovers, Bloomberg reported, and the so-called kimchi premium in Bitcoin has also reappeared. Bloomberg said BTC on South Korea’s largest exchange, Upbit, was trading at about a 1% premium in won terms to Binance’s dollar-denominated price. Domestic BTC prices have maintained a premium over offshore markets for the past week, the longest such stretch since early May, according to the report. Bloomberg explained the kimchi premium measures the gap between Bitcoin prices in South Korea and global markets and is used as one indicator of retail investor sentiment in Asia. BTC Markets analyst Rachael Lucas added that South Korean retail investors tend to buy aggressively when risk appetite strengthens. Lucas said past shifts in South Korea from BTC trading at a discount to offshore exchanges to a premium were followed by stronger returns in the following weeks.