Traders in South Korea are paying a huge premium for a wide range of digital coins sending most coins to new highs. While traders in South Korea normally pay a small premium to other exchanges, due mainly to liquidity issues and the strict control on capital movement, the prices recorded overnight dwarfed other premiums paid. Ripple (XRP) traded at an average price of $3.93, Ethereum (ETH) traded at $1,786 while Bitcoin (BTC) hit a peak of $23,146. This compares to current levels of XRP $2.62, ETH $1,195 and BTC $15,980. Ripple has seen the widest price divergence over the weekend, in part to due to a Twitter spat between the company and a New York Times journalist questioning the adoption by banks of the digital currency .

Cryptocurrency Prices at South Korean Exchange Bithumb – January 8, 2018

Bitcoin Technicals Point to Lower Prices

A look at the latest BTC chart shows the recent strong uptrend has been broken and prices may fall back to a cluster of recent lows going all the way back down to around $11,700. And this may spell bad news for traders with the latest IG Client Sentiment Indicator showing that 76% of retail traders are long of Bitcoin, a negative contrarian indicator.

Bitcoin (BTC) Price Chart Daily Timeframe (November 11, 2017 – January 8, 2018)