Should You Set Your Kimchi Premium Alert Low or High?

Set an alert low and it rings all day; set it high and it stays quiet just when you need it. If you cannot decide on the threshold number for your kimchi premium alert, it is easier to start by looking at how the two cases differ.

Here, the kimchi premium (kimp) is the number showing by what percentage the same coin is more expensive on Korean exchanges than abroad. The alert threshold is the line you set so that the alert rings when that number reaches it.

What happens if you set the threshold too low

As of 4 p.m. KST on October 14, Bitcoin's kimchi premium is around +1.01%. If you set a rise alert at +1% at this point, the premium is near the threshold almost every moment, so the alert can keep ringing.

The kimchi premium often swings by about 0.1–0.3 percentage points within a few minutes. Then the alert rings, and by the time you check, the premium has already come back down, over and over again. The most common ending is that you end up turning the alert off.

The numbers keep changing, so treat the value above only as an example from that moment.

What happens if you set the threshold too high

Conversely, if you set +10% on a coin that usually sits around +1%, the alert almost never rings. Days when the premium widens that far are rare, so having the alert set is about the same as not having one.

Another problem is that you can easily miss the stage where a change begins. By the time the alert rings, the premium may already have moved a lot.

Look at the usual range first, then decide

The usual range is the band in which a coin's kimchi premium normally stays. For example, if it has moved between +0.5% and +1.5% over the last few days, that is its usual range.

Set the threshold a little outside the ends of this range. In the example above, about +2.5% for the rise alert and about 0% for the fall alert can be a starting point. That way, swings inside the range do not set off the alert, and only moves out of the range do.

Each coin has a different usual range. The same +2% is a big change for a coin that usually sits at +1%, but can be ordinary for a coin that usually sits at +3%. You can compare the current values of many coins in the kimchi premium ranking.

Set rise and fall alerts separately

A rise alert rings when the kimchi premium goes above the threshold, and a fall alert rings when it goes below the threshold. The two alerts serve different purposes, so it is better to set their numbers separately.

• Rise alert: about 1 percentage point above the usual upper end. You can read it as a sign that the Korean price has become much more expensive than usual.
• Fall alert: below the usual lower end, or near 0%. It is a sign that the premium is disappearing or turning negative.

You can set alerts on the kimchi premium alerts page. At first, set just one rise alert and one fall alert, watch them for a few days, and then adjust them according to how many times they rang.

If an alert rings more than three or four times a day, the threshold is too close; if it does not ring even once in a week, it is too far.

An alert threshold is not something you set once and forget; it is a value you move along with the usual range when that range changes. Try to tune it so that it rings about once or twice a day.