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Tim Alper

Author

Tim Alper

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Tim Alper is a British journalist and features writer who has worked at Cryptonews.com since 2018. He has written for media outlets such as the BBC, the Guardian, and Chosun Ilbo. He has also worked…

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September 11, 2025

The crypto exchange Upbit has launched a coin listing spree as a response to its South Korean rival Bithumb’s trading volume growth.

The South Korean newspaper Seoul Kyungjae reported that Upbit has listed seven tokens in the past 10 days.

Upbit Listing Spree: Will It Stop Bithumb’s Surge?

The outlet wrote that on September 9, Bithumb’s domestic market share climbed to 46%, with Upbit’s share standing at 50.6%.

Upbit has dominated the South Korean market since around 2022, enjoying market share dominance above the 80% mark in some months.

This has led some lawmakers to complain that its operator, Dunmau, has become the crypto exchange sector’s de facto monopoly.

But Bithumb has been chipping away at Upbit’s market share in recent months. It has struck a partnership deal with Kookmin Bank, South Korea’s biggest financial player.

And it has also launched a spinoff firm as it looks to become the first domestic exchange to debut on the NASDAQ stock exchange.

Upbit appears to have responded to Bithumb’s resurgence by launching new altcoin pairings and listing a wider range of coins.

An unnamed South Korean exchange official told the media outlet that Upbit is concerned that Bithumb has narrowed the market share gap to less than 5% without resorting to novel promotions. The official opined:

“Upbit cannot help but feel a sense of crisis.”

WLD Listing

The media outlet wrote that Upbit’s response to Worldcoin (WLD) trade volume growth in South Korea has been telling.

When WLD transaction volumes pushed Bithumb’s market share to 46% on September 9, Upbit responded rapidly.

Upbit announced it would be listing WLD at 7 pm KST the same day and completed its listing just two hours later, at 9 pm KST.

Upbit’s latest listing, at 1:30 am KST on September 11, was the Linea (LINEA). The exchange’s September listings tally has already surpassed its total number of listings for the whole of August.

Customers May Suffer, Experts Warn

The market leader has traditionally taken a much more conservative attitude to coin listing than Bithumb, which also continues to add coins to its platform.

Should the two firms become embroiled in a listings war, critics warn, customers could suffer in the long run.

Experts said they were “concerned” that the “fierce competition between exchanges” could lead platform managers to make “hasty decisions” that “compromise the review process.”

The experts noted that while listing frenzies continue, South Korean delisting events are becoming more common.

A combined total of 25 altcoins have been delisted by Bithumb, Upbit, and their closest rivals, Korbit, Coinone, and GOPAX, since July this year.

Several of these coins had only recently been listed on the platforms. An unnamed crypto industry executive suggested that Seoul’s efforts to police the sector may be at fault.

The source said:

“Regulators only allow domestic exchanges to provide spot trading. That means that the only way they can compete with one another is by expanding their listings. It is ironic that regulators’ attempts to police the industry are actually spurring listing competition and weakening investor protection.”

Dunamu, the parent company of South Korea’s largest crypto exchange UPbit, reported a significant increase in earnings for 2024, defying ongoing regulatory challenges.

Chosun Bix, citing the firm’s annual business filing, reported that Dunamu’s operating profit surged 85.1% to 1.19 trillion won (approximately $682 million) in 2024.

According to the report, the firm’s revenue climbed 70.5% year-over-year to 1.73 trillion won ($1.1 billion), while net profit rose 22.2%, hitting 983.8 billion won ($670 million) from 805 billion won in 2023.

The report attributed this strong performance to heightened trading activity fueled by Bitcoin halving. Last April, BTC had its fourth halving event, which slashed block rewards from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC.

Beyond that, the firm noted that positive investor sentiment grew following the US election of Donald Trump, who is widely seen as favorable to crypto markets.

Since his inauguration, the Trump administration has implemented a series of pro-crypto moves that have positively improved the trajectory of the emerging industry and attracted significant institutional investors.

At the same time, Dunamu pointed out that the expectations of lower interest rates from the Federal Reserve helped improve global liquidity, further boosting digital asset activity.

Regulatory issues

Despite the positive financial results, Dunamu remains entangled in regulatory scrutiny.

South Korean regulators accused Upbit of failing to conduct sufficient due diligence on many of its users. In response, the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) barred the exchange from accepting new customers or allowing them to transfer virtual assets starting March 7.

However, Dunamu contested the FIU’s decision, arguing that it had already taken necessary compliance measures.

The firm maintained that the sanctions were disproportionate and imposed without understanding the context. According to Dunamu, the penalty could cause lasting harm to its operations.

According to a report from local outlet Newsis, a South Korean court temporarily lifted the ban on March 27.

The ruling allows Dunamu to challenge the regulatory suspension in court and pauses the ban’s enforcement until a final verdict is reached.

Even then, the suspension would not take effect for 30 days after the ruling—offering the company critical time to continue operating uninterrupted.

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