Kimchi Premium Index
Kimp index · Market-wide kimchi premium
One number that rolls many coins' kimchi premiums together, showing how much dearer (or cheaper) the whole Korean crypto market is than markets abroad.
Simple explanation
Background: Korean investors watch the kimchi premium as a gauge of how hot their home market is, and one index for the whole market is easier to follow than hundreds of coin-by-coin figures. Koreans call it 김프 지수 ("kimp index").
The premium differs from coin to coin. At the same moment bitcoin may be at +1%, one altcoin at +5% and another at −2%, so no single coin tells you whether the Korean market as a whole is running hot. An index averages the premiums of many actively traded coins in a fixed way and shows the market-wide premium as one number.
How you average matters. A simple average lets one barely traded coin swing the whole number, so such indexes usually weight each coin by its trading value: the coins where the most money changes hands say the most about the market mood. Which coins, which exchanges and which exchange rate go in all change the result, so rather than comparing indexes built by different providers, follow the same index over time.
CoinGaja's index uses the 30 coins with the highest 24-hour trading value on Upbit's won (KRW) market. For each coin, premium = Upbit price ÷ (Binance price × KRW/USD rate) − 1, and the index is the average weighted by each coin's share of Upbit 24-hour trading value. Coins are left out if Upbit has suspended their deposits or withdrawals, if they merely share a ticker with a different coin (such as AI, DATA and LIT), if they are stablecoins (USDT, USDC and the like), or if their price is stale or missing; the index takes the top 30 of what remains.
There are reasons for each. A coin whose deposits or withdrawals are closed cannot be arbitraged against overseas prices, so its premium can run to tens of percent on its own; left in, it would drag the index with its own story rather than the market's. A same-ticker, different-coin pair is simply a wrong comparison, and a stablecoin's premium is really the Tether premium, which is tracked separately.
The index is recalculated every minute and recorded every five minutes. It is shown to two decimal places, and the change versus a day, a week and a month ago is given in percentage points. The chart has 24-hour, 7-day, 30-day, 1-year and all-time views. The year before recording began is rebuilt from Upbit and Binance one-hour closing prices of today's coins and the previous day's trading value, and is drawn lighter. Wallet suspensions back then are unknown, so a coin more than 3 percentage points away from the median premium of the other top coins at that hour was treated as a wallet problem and dropped. Read the lighter stretch as an estimate, not a record.
A high index means buying pressure in Korea is stronger than abroad, which tends to happen when retail money pours in during bull markets; bitcoin's premium went above 20% in early 2018 and again in April 2021. A negative index means the market as a whole is at a reverse premium. The exchange rate alone can move the index, so check it when the index jumps. If the index sits close to the Tether premium, coins are not especially dear in Korea; dollars (Tether) are.
The index is an average, so some coins can carry high premiums while it is low, and the other way round. It uses Upbit only, so it can differ from the headline premium on a coin's own row, which is the median across the four Korean exchanges. A high index is neither a ready arbitrage profit (fees, transfer time and the cost of getting dollars come first) nor a signal that prices will rise or fall.
The CoinGaja Kimchi Premium Index page shows the current value, the chart, and which coins are left out right now and why (wallet suspension, same-ticker coin, stablecoin).
Example
(3 coins instead of 30, to keep it short) Bitcoin: 24-hour trading value ₩300 billion (about $214 million), premium +1.00%
Ethereum: ₩150 billion, +2.00% · Coin A: ₩50 billion, -1.00% → total ₩500 billion (weights 60% · 30% · 10%)
Index = 1.00 × 0.6 + 2.00 × 0.3 + (−1.00) × 0.1 = +1.10%
A simple average would be (1.00 + 2.00 − 1.00) ÷ 3 = +0.67% → heavily traded coins count for more
Add Coin B with deposits closed (₩50 billion, premium +12.00%) → (300 × 1.00 + 150 × 2.00 + 50 × (−1.00) + 50 × 12.00) ÷ 550 = +2.09% → that is why suspended coins are left out
If the index was +0.80% a day earlier → change versus the previous day +0.30 percentage points
※ Example numbers, for illustration only
See it on CoinGaja
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