Are US Investors Buying Bitcoin Right Now?
When US money buys hard, the price on the US-regulated venue runs above the global market; when it sells, it trades below. That gap is the Coinbase Premium, one of the cleanest daily reads on American demand. This page charts it back to 2017 and adds what the market-neutral basis trade pays today, the same trade that drives much of the hedge fund positioning in our COT report.
As of 2026-09-02, the Coinbase Premium is -0.04%: US traders are bidding below the global price. The Bitcoin cash-and-carry trade currently pays about +3.78% annualized.
Is US money pushing price up or down?
Each point is one day's closing gap between the US-regulated price and the global price, in percent. Sustained green stretches have historically lined up with US-led rallies; deep red stretches with US-led selling.
What does the basis trade pay right now?
Buy spot, short the quarterly future, pocket the gap: that is the cash-and-carry trade. The annualized yields below are what that lock-in pays today, before fees. High carry attracts the hedge fund shorts you see in the COT report; collapsing carry often precedes them unwinding.
Computed from listed quarterly futures against spot, captured daily. Not investment advice: executing this trade involves exchange, funding and margin risk.
Kimchi premium and Turkey premium
The same gap measured for Korea and Turkey: Upbit, Bithumb and Coinone in KRW (ECB reference rate) and BtcTurk in USDT, each against Binance spot at the same 10-minute bucket. Positive = the local venue pays above the global price.
| Venue | Country | BTC Premium | ETH Premium | XRP Premium | BTC Venue price | BTC Binance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Upbit | KR · KRW | +0.004% | -0.034% | -0.053% | 77,355 | 77,352 |
| Bithumb | KR · KRW | +0.044% | +0.081% | +0.093% | 77,386 | 77,352 |
| Coinone | KR · KRW | +0.771% | +0.805% | +0.786% | 77,949 | 77,352 |
| BtcTurk | TR · USDT | +0.170% | +0.095% | +0.162% | 77,484 | 77,352 |
As of 2026-09-03 01:40 UTC
BTC premium by day
Last 10-minute bucket of each UTC day, one column per venue. Recorded since 2026-08-21; there is no earlier history here.
| Date | Upbit | Bithumb | Coinone | BtcTurk |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-09-03 | +0.004% | +0.044% | +0.771% | +0.170% |
| 2026-09-02 | +0.098% | -0.050% | +0.949% | -0.183% |
| 2026-09-01 | -0.029% | -0.030% | +0.599% | -0.013% |
| 2026-08-31 | +0.045% | -0.004% | +0.747% | -0.024% |
| 2026-08-30 | +0.022% | +0.032% | +1.228% | +0.047% |
| 2026-08-29 | +0.016% | -0.045% | +1.182% | -0.039% |
| 2026-08-28 | -0.077% | -0.030% | +0.831% | -0.157% |
| 2026-08-27 | +0.068% | +0.046% | +0.156% | -0.058% |
| 2026-08-26 | +0.012% | +0.048% | +0.493% | -0.086% |
| 2026-08-25 | -0.012% | -0.021% | +0.563% | +0.054% |
| 2026-08-24 | -0.018% | +0.033% | -0.587% | +0.022% |
| 2026-08-23 | -0.033% | -0.028% | -0.921% | -0.047% |
| 2026-08-22 | -0.084% | +0.062% | -1.066% | -0.049% |
| 2026-08-21 | +0.071% | -0.001% | -0.802% | +0.078% |
Both legs are read at the same moment from our own venue snapshots, so this is a same-bucket gap, not a difference of daily closes. Korean venues quote in KRW; the USD conversion uses the ECB reference rate captured at collection time, which is why a few hundredths of a percent of the premium is FX noise.
Who moves first, the US or the world?
Correlation of one-minute returns between the US spot feed and the global perp feed, shifted minute by minute. A peak right of zero would mean the US move prints first; left of zero, the world leads. Measured from our own two live recorders: no side leads at minute resolution: arbitrage closes the gap within the minute. (same-minute corr 0.98 · n minutes 39,442 · 27.5 days of overlap)
이런 날들 이후에는 어떤 일이 있었습니까?
기록된 각 일자는 이 지표가 위치한 구간별로 묶습니다. 각 밴드는 이후에 나타난 BTC의 중간 움직임을 보여줍니다. 분포이며, 예측이 아닙니다.
오늘은 9년 일별 기록 중 "약간 낮음" 밴드에 있습니다. 이런 날들은 향후 7일 동안 BTC 중간 +0.0% 움직임으로 이어졌습니다 (n=656), 평균적인 날의 +0.5%와 비교됩니다. 과거이며, 예측이 아닙니다.
| 밴드 | 범위 | 일수 | 향후 24h | 향후 72h | 향후 7d | 향후 7d |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 매우 낮음 | -5.352% … -0.066% | 661 | +0.0% | -0.1% | +0.1% | 51% |
| 약간 낮음오늘 | -0.066% … +0.000% | 656 | +0.1% | +0.3% | +0.0% | 50% |
| 중간 | +0.000% … +0.032% | 660 | -0.1% | +0.1% | +0.2% | 52% |
| 약간 높음 | +0.032% … +0.084% | 660 | +0.2% | +0.4% | +0.5% | 54% |
| 매우 높음 | +0.084% … +13.353% | 660 | +0.2% | +1.1% | +1.9% | 59% |
| 전체 일자, 기준 비율 | 3297 | +0.1% | +0.3% | +0.5% | 53% |
각 밴드 이후의 BTC 중간 움직임입니다. 2017-08-17 이후 기록, (3304일). 과거이며, 예측이 아닙니다.
Methodology and sources
The premium is the daily closing price on Coinbase, the largest US-regulated venue, minus the global market's closing price for the same day, divided by the global price. Positive means US buyers are paying up; negative means US flow is selling into global demand. History runs from August 2017, the earliest date both series exist.
Both closes are UTC daily candles. The current day is excluded until its candle completes, so the newest point is always a finished day, never a moving intraday number.
Carry yields use listed quarterly futures against spot: (future minus spot) divided by spot, annualized by days to expiry. We capture the reading once a day and are building the daily record; the history chart will appear as it accumulates.
FAQ
What is the Coinbase Premium?
The percentage gap between Bitcoin's price on Coinbase, the largest US-regulated exchange, and the global market price. Because Coinbase is where US institutions and ETF-related flow transact, a persistent positive premium is one of the cleanest signals that American money is buying; a persistent discount says the opposite.
Why does a fraction of a percent matter?
Arbitrage keeps the venues within a hair of each other, so even 0.1% sustained for days means real one-sided flow that arbitrageurs are struggling to absorb. The sign and the streak matter more than the size.
What is the cash-and-carry (basis) trade?
Buying spot and shorting a quarterly future locks in the price gap between them as a market-neutral yield. When that annualized yield is high, funds pile in, which shows up as hedge fund shorts in the COT report. When it collapses, those positions unwind, which can move the market even though the trade itself is neutral.
How fresh is this data?
The premium updates once a day when the UTC daily candle closes, and the carry snapshot is captured at 00:15 UTC. This is a daily positioning gauge, not an intraday feed.