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Exchanges

Upbit

Upbit is South Korea's largest cryptocurrency exchange, run by Dunamu since 2017; the brand is also present in Singapore, Indonesia and Thailand. It has no MiCA licence and does not operate in the EU; Dunamu's merger with Naver Financial has been announced but not completed.

Riccardo CuratoloBy Riccardo Curatolo 3 min read How we work
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What Upbit is

Upbit is the cryptocurrency exchange of Dunamu Inc., a Seoul company led by CEO Oh Kyoung-suk. It opened on 24 October 2017 thanks to an exclusive agreement with the US exchange Bittrex, which provided the bitcoin, ether and tether markets with a shared order book. Since 25 October 2019 Upbit has run its bitcoin and tether markets on its own, no longer sharing the order book with Bittrex, and it has closed the ether market. Today it is the largest exchange in South Korea, where it operates in won with accounts in the customer's name at its partner bank, K Bank. On 26 November 2025 Naver Financial announced its merger with Dunamu through a share swap worth around 15.13 trillion won (10.3 billion dollars), which would make Dunamu its wholly owned subsidiary: as of October 2026 the deal is awaiting clearance from the Korean antitrust authority and the swap has been postponed to 31 March 2027. (Verified: October 2026)

Regulation and licences

(Verified: October 2026)

  • MiCA: NO — neither Dunamu nor the Asian Upbit companies appear in the ESMA register of crypto-asset service providers (updated on 22 October 2026): no Upbit entity is authorised to serve customers in the European Union.
  • South Korea — registered with the FIU, Korea's financial intelligence unit: in September 2021 it was the first exchange to be accepted and, according to the Korean press, its registration was renewed in December 2025.
  • Partial suspension — on 25 February 2025 the FIU barred new customers from transferring crypto-assets off the platform for three months, citing 44,948 transfers with 19 unregistered foreign operators and shortcomings in customer verification. The Seoul Administrative Court suspended the measure in March 2025 and annulled it at first instance on 9 April 2026; the FIU lodged an appeal on 30 April 2026.
  • Financial penalty — on 6 November 2025 the FIU notified Dunamu of a fine of 35.2 billion won, the largest ever imposed by the authority, for around 8.6 million breaches of anti-money-laundering obligations. Dunamu objected in February 2026: the fine therefore lost effect and a court will decide.
  • South-East Asia — Upbit Singapore Pte. Ltd. is listed in the MAS register as a Major Payment Institution for digital payment tokens (licence announced on 8 January 2024); the platforms in Indonesia and Thailand state that they are supervised by Indonesia's OJK and Thailand's SEC.
  • CONSOB (Italy's securities regulator) — no warning or blocking order for Upbit or upbit.com.

Security

  • 27 November 2019 — 342,000 ETH (around 58 billion won) left the Ethereum hot wallet. Upbit announced that it would cover the loss with its own funds and suspended deposits and withdrawals, which were gradually reactivated from 4 December 2019. In November 2024 the South Korean police attributed the attack to the North Korean groups Lazarus and Andariel.
  • 27 November 2025 — abnormal withdrawals from a hot wallet on the Solana network totalling around 44.5 billion won, of which 38.6 billion belonged to customers. Upbit admitted a vulnerability of its own that made it possible to work out the private keys, stated that it had fully reimbursed customers and gradually reopened deposits and withdrawals; the cold wallets remained intact.

Headquarters and contacts

  • Dunamu Inc., 369 Gangnam-daero, Seocho-gu, Seoul, South Korea (developer details of the Upbit app on Google Play, October 2026).
  • Official website: https://upbit.com/

Alternatives

Exchanges with verified MiCA authorisation:

  • Kraken — authorised by the Central Bank of Ireland (June 2025)
  • Bitstamp — authorised by Luxembourg's CSSF (May 2025)
  • Crypto.com — authorised by Malta's MFSA (January 2025)

FAQ

Can I use Upbit from the EU? Not as an authorised service: Upbit has no MiCA licence and the Korean platform works with accounts in the customer's name at the Korean bank K Bank. (Verified: October 2026)

Has Naver bought Upbit? Not yet: the merger between Naver Financial and Dunamu, announced on 26 November 2025, is still awaiting clearance from the Korean antitrust authority as of October 2026, and the share swap has been postponed to 31 March 2027.

Has Upbit suffered cyberattacks? Yes, in November 2019 and November 2025. In both cases the company stated that it would cover customers' losses with its own funds.

Verified sources

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