Bitcoin Premium Calculator
Bitcoin does not have one price. The same coin routinely trades 1-2% higher on South Korean exchanges than on global venues, a gap traders call the kimchi premium, and similar spreads appear between exchanges, regions, and products like ETFs whenever markets cannot arbitrage freely. The premium is small on quiet days and a warning siren when it spikes.
The Bitcoin Premium Calculator below measures the spread two ways: a simple mode comparing any two prices in the same currency, and a kimchi mode that converts a won-denominated Korean price against the dollar price at the USD/KRW rate. It gives you the premium percentage, the per-coin markup, and a verdict on whether the reading is normal, elevated, or extreme.
Quick Answer
Key takeaways
- The premium is the percentage gap between a local Bitcoin price and the global reference, after currency conversion.
- The kimchi premium needs three simultaneous inputs: the KRW price, the USD price, and the USD/KRW rate. Stale inputs in any one of them corrupt the result.
- Inside +/-2% is the normal band. Spikes to 6-8% have historically coincided with major volatility, usually to the downside.
- The gap persists because capital controls wall off Korean order books; it is not free arbitrage money.
- Quick Answer
- What the premium actually measures
- The kimchi premium formula
- Worked example, checked against this exact tool
- Recent kimchi premium readings
- Why the premium exists, and why you cannot simply arb it
- What competing pages miss
- Frequently asked questions
- Add This Calculator to Your Website
- References
What the premium actually measures
A premium is not a price; it is a disagreement between two prices. When Korean exchanges quote Bitcoin above the global dollar market (converted to won), the positive reading means won-side buyers are bidding harder than the rest of the world. When it collapses toward zero, the two sides agree. Traders watch it as a gauge of local retail appetite, the same way bond traders watch credit spreads as a gauge of fear.
The simple mode of the calculator covers any two-price comparison: two exchanges, spot versus a fund like GBTC, or your broker’s quote versus the index. The kimchi mode handles the specific three-input calculation the Korean market requires.
The kimchi premium formula
One subtle trap: if your global quote is in USDT rather than USD, convert the stablecoin at its actual market price first. Treating one USDT as exactly one dollar introduces a measurement error that can exceed the premium you are trying to measure.
Worked example, checked against this exact tool
Enter the pre-filled defaults in simple mode ($83,500 local, $82,300 global) and click Calculate:
| Figure | Value |
|---|---|
| Premium | +1.46% ((83,500 – 82,300) / 82,300 x 100) |
| Per-coin difference | +$1.20K per BTC |
| Verdict | Normal range (within +/-2%) |
Switch to kimchi mode with the defaults (110,270,000 KRW; $81,593; 1,332.5 KRW/USD): the global price converts to 108,722,673 won, giving +1.42%, about +1.55M won per coin. Those are the actual market readings from mid-October 2026, which is why the two modes agree.
Recent kimchi premium readings
| Date (2026) | Reading | Context |
|---|---|---|
| Oct 13 | 0.36% | Quiet: domestic and global quotes nearly converged |
| Oct 16 | 1.01% | Firming won-side demand against thin ETF flows |
| Oct 17 | 1.42% | Four-exchange average; Upbit and Bithumb widest at 1.44% |
All three readings sit inside the normal band. For perspective, the premium has historically spiked toward 6-8% during euphoric retail rushes, and those spikes have usually resolved with sharp downside volatility rather than calm convergence.
Why the premium exists, and why you cannot simply arb it
The obvious question is why the gap does not get traded away instantly. The answer is South Korea’s capital controls: moving large sums of won offshore to buy cheap Bitcoin abroad and sell it dear at home runs into foreign-exchange regulations, banking friction, and settlement delays. The order books are partly walled off from global liquidity by law, so local supply and demand clear at their own price.
That friction is also why thin exchanges print misleading readings. Methodologies that average the premium across venues routinely exclude low-liquidity exchanges like Gopax, whose thinner books can push the reading far from the real market. If you are comparing sources, check whether they do the same.
What competing pages miss
Explainers with no calculator. Most top-ranking kimchi premium pages explain the concept at length and never let you compute it. The three-input math is exactly the part people get wrong by hand.
The USDT trap. Several guides gloss over the stablecoin conversion issue. Using a BTC/USDT quote as if it were BTC/USD injects an error that can be larger than the premium itself on volatile days.
No band guidance. Pages quote the premium without saying what counts as high. The +/-2% normal band and the 6%+ danger zone, drawn from how the premium has actually behaved, turn the number into a signal.
Stale-rate blindness. Almost nobody warns that the USD/KRW rate must be contemporaneous with the prices. Official rates are published daily; intraday won moves are invisible inside a premium computed against yesterday’s rate.
Frequently asked questions
The percentage by which Bitcoin’s won-denominated price on South Korean exchanges exceeds its global dollar price after currency conversion. It is computed as (KRW price / (USD price x USD/KRW rate) – 1) x 100. A positive reading means Korean buyers pay more than the world price.
For two prices in the same currency: (local price – global price) / global price x 100. For the kimchi premium you need three simultaneous inputs: the Korean BTC/KRW price, the global BTC/USD price, and the USD/KRW exchange rate, combined as (KRW / (USD x rate) – 1) x 100.
Inside roughly +/-2% is the normal band in recent market conditions. Readings between 2% and 6% are elevated, and spikes to 6-8% have historically coincided with major volatility, usually resolving to the downside.
Capital controls partly wall off Korean exchanges from global liquidity, so local supply and demand clear at their own price. When won-side retail demand runs hot, domestic buyers bid above the world price and the friction of moving money offshore prevents arbitrageurs from closing the gap quickly.
In practice, almost never as an outsider. Capital controls, banking friction, exchange withdrawal limits, and settlement delays eat the spread before you can capture it, and the premium can collapse while your funds are in transit. Treat it as a sentiment gauge, not a trade.
Yes. The same won-vs-world gap appears in Ethereum and altcoins on Korean venues, and it usually moves in the same direction as the Bitcoin premium since the underlying cause, segmented liquidity, affects the whole local market.
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References
- CryptoTimes, “What Is the Kimchi Premium? Meaning and Calculation” – three-input kimchi premium formula with bid-ask midpoint methodology. CryptoTimes: What Is the Kimchi Premium. Accessed October 19, 2026.
- Coinotag, “Bitcoin Kimchi Premium Reads 1.42% in Korea” – four-exchange average methodology and won-per-coin arithmetic. Coinotag: Kimchi Premium 1.42%. Accessed October 19, 2026.
- Coinotag, “Bitcoin Kimchi Premium Averages 0.36% on Korean Exchanges” – premium as a barometer of onshore demand under capital controls. Coinotag: Kimchi Premium 0.36%. Accessed October 19, 2026.
- Coinotag, “Bitcoin Kimchi Premium Averages 1.01% in Korea” – premium behavior against global spot and ETF flows. Coinotag: Kimchi Premium 1.01%. Accessed October 19, 2026.
- TradingView, “Kimchipremium indicator” – premium formula, +/-2% normal band, and 6-8% volatility warning levels. TradingView: Kimchi Premium Indicator. Accessed October 19, 2026.
- Convex, “Bitcoin: $82,303.4 (Oct 19, 2026)” – live BTC spot price reference. Convex: Bitcoin Spot Price. Accessed October 19, 2026.