why did a premium on crypto emerge in south korea 
it is difficult to move large amounts of foreign money into and out of south korean exchanges and banks have strict reporting requirements for moving funds in and out of the country as a result of the crypto s popularity in the country the prices of certain cryptocurrencies rose as high as 20 above prices elsewhere a phenomenon that has lasted for several years was the kimchi premium associated with illegal money transfers while it was usually assumed that the kimchi premium was innocuous caused by technical limitations of the korean banking system and the popularity of crypto an investigation in the summer of 2022 found that more than 3 4 billion of illegal foreign transactions in the country stemmed from cryptocurrencies 4