Overseas Exchange
Offshore exchange · Global exchange · Foreign crypto exchange
A crypto exchange based outside Korea, such as Binance or OKX, that prices coins in USDT or dollars; it supplies the "overseas price" in the kimchi premium.
Simple explanation
Background: Koreans call any non-Korean crypto platform a 해외 거래소, an "overseas exchange". Korean exchanges trade in won only, so the overseas exchanges are where Korean investors find futures, many extra coins and the overseas price that the kimchi premium is measured against.
Big global exchanges such as Binance, OKX, Bybit, Bitget and Gate serve users in many countries and price coins not in won but in dollar stablecoins such as Tether (USDT) or in dollars, so bitcoin shows up as "70,000 USDT", with 1 USDT taken as roughly $1. These are the prices that Korean won exchanges such as Upbit, Bithumb, Coinone and Digital X (formerly Korbit) are compared with, so the "overseas price" in any kimchi premium figure is normally an overseas exchange's price.
The biggest difference is how money gets in and out. You cannot deposit won on an overseas exchange, so Koreans usually buy Tether or a coin on a Korean exchange and send it to their deposit address abroad, or send coins bought abroad back to a Korean exchange to sell for won. Each trip costs a withdrawal fee and time, and transfers of ₩1,000,000 (about $700) or more fall under the Travel Rule, so sender and receiver details are checked. An overseas exchange that is not on the Korean exchange's Travel Rule partner list may be blocked or need a separate identity check, and a deposit from an unsupported exchange may not be credited and can take a long time to come back. Under a decree amendment passed by Korea's cabinet in August 2026, from February 20, 2027 the Travel Rule is due to cover transfers of any amount; transfers with overseas exchanges rated low-risk stay allowed, while other overseas exchanges and personal wallets will be allowed only when sender and receiver are the same person.
People use overseas exchanges for several reasons: to buy coins that no Korean won market lists, to trade perpetual futures and other leveraged products that Korean won exchanges do not offer, or to run kimchi premium arbitrage against overseas prices. Futures and leverage can wipe out everything you put in through liquidation after a fairly small move, and overseas exchanges' fees, promotions and terms differ by exchange and country and change often.
Korean law reaches them too. The Specific Financial Information Act (Act on Reporting and Using Specified Financial Transaction Information) requires even a foreign operator to register with Korea's Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) if it does business with Korean users. The authorities look at whether it offers a Korean-language site, markets to Koreans (sign-up promotions, for example) or supports won payments, and operating without registration carries up to five years in prison or a fine of up to ₩50 million (about $36,000). The FIU identified 16 unregistered overseas operators in 2022 and 6 in 2023 and referred them to investigators; at its request Google blocked new installs and updates in Korea of 17 such operators' apps from March 25, 2025, and Apple did the same for 14 apps from April 11. In June and August 2026 DAXA, the alliance of Korea's won exchanges, also referred eight unregistered overseas exchanges to the police. Registered Korean exchanges must not deal with unregistered operators, so sending coins to those platforms is usually not possible; the FIU website shows which operators are registered.
Assets left on an overseas exchange get little protection from Korean law. Korean exchanges must, under the Virtual Asset User Protection Act, keep users' won with a bank or similar custodian, hold at least 80% of users' coins in cold wallets and carry insurance or reserves against hacks, but none of that applies abroad. If an overseas exchange freezes withdrawals or goes bust, you are left with that country's procedures, which can be slow or fruitless; in 2022 a major overseas exchange suddenly halted withdrawals and went into bankruptcy, and its users' assets stayed frozen for a long time. Korean regulators warn that unregistered platforms carry hacking and data-leak risks and lack safeguards such as segregated deposits, and tell users of such platforms to consider withdrawing their assets.
Tax and reporting come on top. If the combined balance of a Korean resident's overseas financial accounts, crypto accounts on overseas exchanges included, tops ₩500 million (about $357,000) at any month-end during a year, the accounts must be reported to the National Tax Service (NTS) the following June. Per the NTS's June 2026 notice, unreported or under-reported amounts draw a fine of 10% of the amount, and above ₩5 billion (about $3.6 million) criminal charges and public naming are possible. Once crypto income tax begins, gains made abroad are taxable too, and because overseas exchanges do not send records to the NTS the way Korean exchanges do, you may have to prove your own purchase prices and transfer trail. Korea is due to start swapping crypto transaction data with other countries in 2027 under the OECD's Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework (CARF), and under the amended Foreign Exchange Transactions Act due to take effect on December 3, 2026, transfers between Korean and overseas exchanges are to be reported to the Bank of Korea's foreign exchange network. This is general information, not legal or tax advice; check with the authorities or a professional for your own case.
Overseas exchanges matter for the premium itself. Their prices differ slightly from one another, so the same coin's kimchi premium changes with the exchange you compare against. A thinly traded overseas exchange can show a stale last price and a wrong premium, and two coins can share a ticker while being different coins: Upbit's AI (Gensyn) and Binance's AI (Sleepless AI) must not be compared. The time and paperwork needed to move coins between Korea and abroad are also part of why the gap does not close at once.
CoinGaja's price tables use Binance's USDT market as the default overseas price, with 1 USDT counted as $1. The "comparison base" above the table switches to another overseas exchange, and a coin Binance does not list is priced on the first of OKX, Bybit, Bitget and Gate that lists it, tagged e.g. "Bitget-based". The premium is hidden if Binance's price is more than 20 seconds old or another overseas exchange's more than 45 seconds old; Kraken, BTC Markets, HTX, Bitfinex, Gate and Bitget are dropped from the comparison when their last trade is more than 3% off the other exchanges' median, and any overseas price more than 25% off is not shown. The Bitcoin prices by country page puts bitcoin prices from different countries side by side.
Example
Coin A on Binance $2.00 × rate ₩1,400 = ₩2,800; on Upbit ₩2,870 → Binance-based premium = 2,870 ÷ 2,800 − 1 = +2.50%
At the same moment another overseas exchange shows $2.01 → 2.01 × 1,400 = ₩2,814 → premium against that exchange = 2,870 ÷ 2,814 − 1 = +1.99%
Buy 1,000 USDT on a Korean exchange at ₩1,414 and send it abroad → 1,000 × 1,414 = ₩1,414,000 (about $1,010) → ₩1,000,000 or more, so a Travel Rule check applies (from February 20, 2027 it is due to apply at any amount)
Month-end balances on an overseas exchange: ₩400 million at the end of March, ₩520 million (about $371,000) at the end of July → above ₩500 million on at least one month-end, so the account must be reported the following June
Failing to report draws a fine of 10% of the amount → 520,000,000 × 0.1 = ₩52 million (about $37,000)
※ Example numbers, for illustration only
See it on CoinGaja
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