Upbit

Upbit is a centralized exchange where Korean residents buy and sell crypto against the won, bitcoin and USDT. It is operated by Dunamu Inc., a Seoul company whose website footer lists its address in Seocho-gu, its chief executive Oh Kyung-seok, business registration number 119-86-54968 and virtual asset service provider registration number 2021-01. Dunamu describes Upbit as Korea's largest digital asset exchange; that is the company's claim, and it publishes no market-share figures to support it on the exchange site.

Dunamu was founded in 2012. Fortune names Song Chi-hyung, now chairman, and Kim Hyoung-nyon as its founders. Upbit itself launched in 2017, the first year in the copyright line on its site. Dunamu also runs StockPlus, a stock information and unlisted-share trading service, and operates related products under the Upbit name: staking, recurring purchases, a crypto lending service, an NFT marketplace, a research site called Upbit Datalab, an institutional custody service and the NODIT blockchain infrastructure platform.

Ownership is in the middle of a change. In November 2025 Naver Financial, the fintech arm of the Korean internet group Naver, agreed a share swap that would make Dunamu a wholly owned subsidiary, at 2.5422618 Naver Financial shares for each Dunamu share. The closing date has slipped three times while competition and financial regulators review the deal. According to Digital Today's report of a 7 October 2026 Dunamu disclosure, the swap is now scheduled for 31 March 2027, with the shareholder meetings moved to 26 February 2027. Until then Dunamu remains an independent company.

Upbit runs three spot markets: coins priced in Korean won (the KRW market), coins priced in bitcoin (the BTC market) and coins priced in Tether's USDT (the USDT market). Upbit's product menu lists no perpetual futures or margin trading. Its lending product lets members borrow coins against collateral, and the staking page pays rewards on a list of proof-of-stake assets; both carry terms set out on their own pages.

Most activity is in the won market. Prices on Upbit often differ from those on overseas exchanges because Korean capital controls and the travel-rule regime make arbitrage slow. A gap in either direction is common, so a quote on Upbit is a Korean price, not a global one.

Upbit's order book is a standard central limit order book. The minimum order in the KRW market is a commonly searched point; the fee page does not state it, and Upbit's trading guide sits on a separate help site, so check the order screen before relying on any figure. Upbit also offers a REST and WebSocket API for automated trading, documented in its Open API guide.

Upbit charges a flat percentage of the filled amount, with VAT included. In the KRW market the standard rate is the same 0.05% for makers and takers. Reserved orders, which sit until a trigger price, cost 0.139%. The BTC and USDT markets carry a list rate of 0.25%, but as of October 2026 Upbit is running a promotion that cuts both to 0.05% and makes maker orders placed through the API free; its disclosure page records the BTC and USDT discount as extended on 11 September 2026 and the API maker promotion as announced on 14 October 2026. Promotions are applied according to when the order is submitted.

Withdrawals carry a flat fee per transaction that depends on the coin; Upbit says won withdrawal fees go to the relevant institutions and coin withdrawal fees pay for network transfer costs. Transfers between two Upbit members using the instant-withdrawal feature are free. The per-coin withdrawal table loads only for signed-in users in some sessions, so the live figure for TRX, XRP, XLM or any other coin should be read on the withdrawal screen before sending.

On 14 July 2026 we measured the all-in cost of a $10,000 bitcoin purchase in the KRW market at 0.05%, the same at $1,000 and $100,000. The flat result reflects the fee schedule. The same day we measured only 7.3 BTC of resting orders within 0.1% of the best ask, a thin book for an exchange of this profile, so large orders are likely to pay more in price impact than in fees.

Upbit is built for Korean residents. To deposit or withdraw won, a member must complete customer verification, register a real-name bank account and pass two-channel authentication; Upbit's guide names K Bank as the bank, with lower limits on K Bank accounts classed as limit accounts. Each member can link one verified account. Foreign nationals who do not meet the Korean verification requirements should not expect to be able to open a won account.

Outside Korea the Upbit brand is used by separate affiliated exchanges in Singapore, Indonesia and Thailand. Upbit's travel-rule list treats them as foreign exchanges like any other. Their licences and terms are their own and are not covered by Dunamu's Korean registration.

Daily limits reset at midnight Korean time. Crypto withdrawals count against the daily limit at their won value when sent, and Upbit says it may restrict deposits and withdrawals when it suspects fraudulent trading.

Korea's travel rule shapes almost every crypto transfer on Upbit. Below KRW 1 million, deposits arrive without extra checks and withdrawals go through after an address check, with the user naming the destination. At KRW 1 million or more, Upbit only exchanges coins with listed counterparties: domestic exchanges and custodians, foreign exchanges connected to its travel-rule solution, and personal wallets that the member has registered and verified.

The list Upbit published on 16 October 2026 allows two-way transfers with Bithumb, Coinone, Gopax and other Korean venues, and with foreign exchanges including Binance, OKX, Bybit, Bitget, Crypto.com, Gate and the affiliated Upbit Singapore, Indonesia and Thailand. Coinbase, Kraken, Okcoin and Bitbank appear as deposit-only sources. Transfers to or from an unregistered overseas operator are blocked whatever the amount; the 31 August 2026 list of such operators names KuCoin, MEXC, Phemex, Poloniex, BingX, CoinEx, Bitrue and others.

In practice, moving coins from Upbit to a hardware wallet means registering that wallet address first. Our guide on moving crypto off an exchange covers the general steps; on Upbit the extra one is the address registration.

Upbit holds members' coins itself; there is no option to keep keys while trading. Its footer links to an ISMS-P information security certificate, and it runs a public bug bounty program. These are signs of a security process, not guarantees against loss.

Reserve disclosure takes the form of a daily reconciliation page. For each listed coin Upbit publishes the ratio of what it holds in its wallets to what members hold on their balances. At 24:00 KST on 28 October 2026 it showed BTC at 100.0%, ETH, XRP and SOL at 100.1% and USDT at 101.8%. Upbit notes that the ratio can look low for a moment because withdrawals leave its wallets before they leave member balances. The page names no outside verifier and offers no way for a member to check that their own balance is in the total, so it is a company-computed figure, not an audit or an independent attestation. Our article on how to check that an exchange holds your money explains what each kind of reserve report can and cannot show.

Upbit has lost coins from hot wallets twice. On 27 November 2019, 342,000 ETH, worth close to $50 million at the time, left its Ethereum hot wallet; Upbit said it would cover the loss from company assets and moved its remaining funds to cold storage. Five years later, in November 2024, South Korea's police attributed that theft to the North Korean Lazarus and Andariel groups. On 27 November 2025, about KRW 44.5 billion (roughly $30 million) in Solana-network assets was drained over about 54 minutes, a day after the Naver deal was announced. According to The Block, Dunamu covered KRW 38.6 billion of affected customer assets from its own reserves and had frozen about KRW 2.6 billion of the stolen funds; the Financial Supervisory Service began a sanction process in July 2026 that was still open at the time of writing.

Both thefts ended with customer balances restored by the company, which is the outcome users care about most. The arrangement still depends on Dunamu having the money: Upbit publishes no separate protection fund or insurance policy that would pay out if a future loss were larger.

Dunamu's VASP registration is held under Korea's Act on Reporting and Using Specified Financial Transaction Information, which the Financial Intelligence Unit enforces. On 25 February 2025 the Financial Intelligence Unit ordered a three-month partial suspension that would have barred new users from transferring crypto, citing transactions with unregistered foreign operators and customer due-diligence failures. A court stayed the order, and in April 2026 the Seoul Administrative Court cancelled it, finding that intent or gross negligence had not been shown, according to Cointelegraph's report of the ruling. The FSS sanction process over the 2025 theft is separate and unresolved.

Opening an account takes the Upbit app or website, identity verification, a registered real-name bank account for won transfers and two-channel authentication. Won withdrawals go back only to the registered account. Coin withdrawals go to whitelisted exchanges or registered personal wallets, subject to the daily limits above.

Upbit publishes a page showing which coins currently have deposits or withdrawals suspended, usually for network upgrades. Checking it before sending avoids a transfer stuck in a paused wallet.

• Verify identity and register one real-name bank account.
• Set up two-channel authentication; without it, won transfers are unavailable and coin withdrawals are capped at KRW 100 million a day.
• Register any personal wallet address before withdrawing KRW 1 million or more to it.
• Check the deposit and withdrawal status page for the coin and network before each transfer.

Upbit lists a customer center line, 1588-5682, open on weekdays from 09:00 to 18:00 Korean time, and a separate 24-hour line for financial fraud, 1533-1111; both are charged calls. KakaoTalk chat runs 24 hours, written questions go through the 1:1 inquiry form, and the Upbit Lounge at 2F, 14 Teheran-ro 4-gil, Gangnam-gu, Seoul takes walk-in visitors on weekdays.

Upbit runs a separate form for reporting listing-related fraud, which exists because people pose as Upbit staff and offer paid listings. Upbit's listing inquiries go only through listing.upbit.com. Any other channel claiming to sell a listing, or asking a member to move coins for safekeeping, should be treated as fraud.

The exchange's history is short but busy, and most of the events that matter to users date from the last two years.

• 2012: Dunamu founded in Seoul.
• 2017: Upbit exchange launched.
• 27 November 2019: 342,000 ETH stolen from a hot wallet; Upbit covers the loss from company assets.
• 21 November 2024: Korean police attribute the 2019 theft to North Korean groups.
• 25 February 2025: FIU orders a three-month partial suspension, later stayed and cancelled in court.
• 26–27 November 2025: Naver Financial and Dunamu announce a share swap; the next day about $30 million in Solana-network assets is stolen.
• April 2026: Seoul Administrative Court cancels the FIU suspension.
• July 2026: FSS opens a sanction process over the 2025 theft.
• October 2026: Naver Financial share swap moved to 31 March 2027.

For a Korean resident who wants a won market, Upbit's competitors are domestic: Bithumb, Coinone and the other venues on its domestic transfer list. For anyone outside Korea it is not a practical choice. We publish a separate comparison of how Upbit compares with other exchanges, which covers measured costs and custody evidence side by side.