Kimchi Premium

What it shows

Two lines in a band under the chart, both in percent, both around a zero line. Each is how much more the coin costs on this Korean venue (Upbit or Bithumb) than the same coin's USDT market abroad, once the foreign price is converted into won:

• USDT line — converted at Upbit's own USDT/KRW close for the same candle. This is the rate a Korean trader can actually swap at, so it is the premium you could act on.
• Bank-rate line — converted at the ECB's daily USD/KRW reference rate. This is the premium against the official dollar, and it includes whatever premium USDT itself trades at in Korea.

Each candle's value is close ÷ (price abroad × rate) − 1, times 100. At zero the coin costs the same in both places; at +2 it costs 2% more in Korea.

The gap between the two lines is the premium on USDT itself: when the USDT line sits well below the bank-rate line, Korean buyers are paying up for dollars as well as for the coin.

How to read it

• A rising premium means Korean buyers are paying more than the rest of the market — demand that cannot leave the country quickly enough to close the gap.
• A premium near zero or below means the local market is no hotter than abroad, or cooler.
• Sudden jumps on one venue alone usually come from that venue's own order flow, not from a change abroad.
• The bank-rate line moves once per working day as well as with price, so a step in it with no step in the USDT line is the rate changing, not the market.

Parameters

Compare with picks the market abroad. Spot is the default because it compares like with like; futures and perpetuals carry their own basis, which would be a second premium stacked on this one.

USDT rate is Upbit's USDT/KRW. A Bithumb chart reads Upbit's too, so both venues are measured against one reference.

Bank rate is the ECB's USD/KRW reference rate, as it was known when each candle closed. The legend row shows which day's rate the line is on.

Alert level (%) draws a dashed line across the band and is the level the alert conditions watch. 3% is a fixed starting point, not a value fitted to history.

Alerts

Two conditions, each ticked on its own: aboveUsdt when the USDT line crosses above the alert level at a candle's close, and aboveFx when the bank-rate line does. A line that stays above fires once, on the candle it crossed. They are checked on closed candles of the timeframe you pick. A candle with a missing reference price, or with no bank rate standing, fires nothing — and neither does the candle right after it, because a crossing is judged against the candle before, and that one has no value.

Limitations

• It reads only on a symbol quoted in KRW. On any other chart the legend row says so and draws nothing.
• The coin needs a USDT market under the same name on the venue you compare with. If it trades under another name abroad, the legend row says no reference can be read; pick another market in Compare with.
• The ECB publishes once per working day. Weekends and holidays keep the last published rate, and the bank-rate line stops if no new rate has arrived for five days.
• The ECB rate is a reference, not a price you can trade at; the USDT line is the one you could act on.
• Each candle's value arrives once the candle has closed, so the lines stop at the last closed candle.
• It is computed from the venues' own candles, for this symbol and for both references, so it reaches back as far as the chart's candles do, on recorded and live-only symbols alike.
• A minute in which a venue had no trade has no candle there, and no value here: the line has a gap rather than a guessed value. On 1-minute candles this happens on Bithumb even for BTC/KRW.
• It takes one of the panel's two band places — see Over the price, and in bands.