Upbit Statistics 2026: Trading Fee 0.05%, KRW Market Share, Naver Deal

Upbit processes between US $2 – 4 billion in daily trades across its global operations and serves 8+ million verified users primarily throughout the Asia-Pacific regions, with Upbit and Bithumb together holding approximately 87% of Korea’s crypto exchange market alongside Coinone at around 10% through this year. The Upbit statistics below cover fees, KRW pair concentration, regulatory standing, and the pending Naver-Dunamu merger. The exchange charges a 0.05% maker and taker fee on KRW market trades, notably competitive compared to other trading pairs on the platform, while BTC and USDT-paired markets sit at 0.25%, an asymmetry that pulls volume toward won-denominated pairs and drives the ranked-keyword traffic patterns Korean traders search for daily.

November 2025 delivered twin shocks: a 35.2 billion won ($25 million) fine from the FIU for AML and KYC violations, plus a three-month ban on new customers, followed six days later by a Solana hot wallet drain of 44.5 billion won (about $30 million) on November 27, 2025, marking the exact six-year anniversary of the previous major security breach in 2019. Days later, Naver Financial announced an all-stock acquisition of Dunamu (Upbit’s parent) valued at around $10.3 billion, with the combined entity worth close to 20 trillion won or $13.6 billion. Upbit and its parent now sit at the centre of Korea’s stablecoin-rail debate. The twin-shock 2025 narrative (the FIU enforcement plus the Lazarus-suspect Solana drain) anchors how Tiger Research, Bloomberg, Coinranking, and KED Global frame Upbit’s compliance posture going into the Naver close.

Key Takeaways

• Upbit and Bithumb together capture about 87% of Korea’s crypto exchange market share, with Coinone trailing near 10%, leaving Korbit and GOPAX to split the rest.
• Korea’s verified crypto investor base reached 11.13 million at the end of 2025, an all-time high, while daily average trading volume settled near $3.7 billion, down 15% half-on-half.
• The KRW market maker/taker fee sits at 0.05%, the cheapest schedule in Korea; BTC and USDT crypto-paired markets charge 0.25%.
• The minimum order on the KRW market is 5,000 KRW, lowering the entry threshold for retail traders.
• The November 2025 FIU fine reached 35.2 billion won (about $25 million) for more than 700,000 AML and KYC violations, carrying a three-month new-customer suspension.
• Naver Financial’s stock-swap takeover of Dunamu, announced November 26, 2025, values the deal at $10.3 billion and the combined entity at $13.6 billion.

Editor’s Choice

• Upbit’s 24-hour spot trading volume stands at $181.58 million on Coinranking’s recent snapshot, ranking the exchange #28 globally.
• More than 180 crypto coins and 300 trading pairs appear on Upbit’s main Korean platform per CoinMarketCap’s current snapshot.
• The 2019 Upbit hack lost 342,000 ETH, equating to approximately 1.4 trillion won or roughly $1 billion at current valuations.
• Naver agreed to acquire Dunamu in an all-stock deal valued at around $10.3 billion, as reported by Bloomberg.
• Song Chi-hyung emerges as Naver Financial’s largest shareholder with a 19.5% stake post-close.
• The FSC sets a ceiling at 20% with the authority to permit exceptions of up to 34% through an enforcement decree.

Recent Developments

• March 5, 2026: brought the FSC and ruling-party task force agreement on a 20% ownership cap with up to 34% discretionary exception, with Upbit and Bithumb facing a three-year transition.
• February 2026: saw the KOSPI break through 6,300 from a January 2025 start at roughly 2,400, more than doubling in just over a year and pulling Korean retail attention away from crypto trading volumes.
• December 23, 2025: marked the Financial Intelligence Unit accepting Dunamu’s renewal filing and issuing a certificate of acceptance, making Upbit’s operator the first of Korea’s five won-based exchange operators to complete the renewal cycle.
• November 27, 2025: saw Upbit report abnormal withdrawals from a Solana hot wallet at 04:42 local time, totalling 44.5 billion won (about $30 million) across more than 20 tokens, including SOL, USDC, TRUMP and LAYER.
• November 26, 2025: brought Naver’s agreement to acquire Dunamu in an all-stock deal valued at around $10.3 billion, with Song emerging as Naver Financial’s largest shareholder at 19.5% post-close.
• November 2025: saw the FIU impose a fine of 35.2 billion KRW (approximately $25 million) for widespread AML and KYC breaches with a three-month new-customer suspension.

Upbit Statistics: Market Share and Korean Dominance

• Per Tiger Research’s Korea Crypto Industry Guide, the combined Korean duopoly sits at about 87%, with Upbit and Bithumb’s combined share landing at approximately 87%, with Coinone trailing near 10%, leaving Korbit and GOPAX to split the remainder. Per Bloomberg and per KED Global coverage, the same combined share appears in Naver’s deal disclosures.
• According to the FSC ruling-party task force, Upbit and Bithumb together account for roughly 90% of Korea’s domestic crypto trading volume, a slightly different cut than Tiger Research’s exchange-operator data; per Coinranking and CoinMarketCap snapshots, that share is mirrored at the aggregator level.
• Korea’s verified crypto investor base reached 11.13 million at the end of 2025, framing Upbit’s user pool against a national rather than purely platform metric.
• User-growth momentum decelerated from a peak rate of 24.7% in H2 2024 to 11% in H1 2025 and 5.2% in H2 2025, signalling a cooling phase for new sign-ups even as installed-base figures hit records.
• Daily average Korean crypto trading volume sat at approximately $3.7 billion in H2 2025, down 15% half-on-half, while exchange operating profit dropped 38% over the same window.
• Upbit’s globally measured market share lands at 0.460% across all reported venues, a figure that looks small until set against Korea’s KRW-pair concentration, where one currency-fiat lane runs through one operator.

Source: Tiger Research, Coinranking, FSC commentary

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Is Upbit available outside South Korea?

Upbit launched in Singapore on October 30, 2018, followed by Indonesia starting in January 2019 and Thailand starting in January 2021, with each regional entity operating independently. Regional versions support SGD, THB and IDR, respectively, as their primary fiat lanes. The Korean platform remains Upbit’s volume engine; the regional entities serve smaller domestic markets and do not unify accounts with Upbit Korea.

What is Upbit’s market share in South Korea?

Upbit and Bithumb together capture approximately 87% of national trading volume, with Coinone trailing near 10%. The FSC noted that Upbit and Bithumb together account for roughly 90% of Korea’s domestic crypto trading volume using a wider cut. Either lens puts the market into a duopoly that the new ownership cap was designed to address rather than dilute.

Upbit Statistics: Naver-Dunamu Merger and Ownership Structure

• The all-stock deal sits at $10.3 billion with a combined entity value of $13.6 billion, announced on November 26, 2025, with Naver agreeing to acquire Dunamu in an all-stock deal valued at around $10.3 billion, as reported by Bloomberg and reshaping Korea’s domestic financial and blockchain landscape.
• The combined fintech group lands at roughly 20 trillion won, about $13.6 billion, in enterprise value, pulling Upbit’s economics under the same umbrella as Naver Financial’s payments, neobank and stablecoin pipeline.
• Following the swap, Dunamu chair Song Chi-hyung emerges as Naver Financial’s largest shareholder with a 19.5% stake, a structurally interesting outcome for a reverse-merger of this size.
• The deal is explicitly tied to Korea’s bid to build a won-based stablecoin ecosystem, the strongest signal yet that Upbit’s regulatory tolerance and the country’s payment-rail policy intersect at Dunamu rather than the banks.
• Pre-deal, Song held roughly 25-28% of Dunamu shares, setting up the FSC ownership-cap question that arrived three months later.
• KED Global identifies Upbit as Korea’s top crypto exchange and the world’s fourth-largest crypto exchange by reported volume, the framing Naver’s IR materials.
• Reading the Naver deal as “Upbit gets acquired” misses the structural read: Song’s 19.5% post-close stake plus Dunamu’s existing footprint make this a reverse-merger that hands Korea’s biggest crypto operator influence over a national payments-fintech platform serving tens of millions of consumers.

By the numbers: Naver Financial’s all-stock acquisition of Dunamu values the deal at $10.3 billion and the combined entity at roughly $13.6 billion in enterprise value, with Song Chi-hyung emerging as the 19.5% lead shareholder of the merged group and Naver Corp’s stake diluting from approximately 70% to the high teens through the reverse-merger swap.

Source: KED Global, CryptoTimes

Who owns Upbit?

Upbit is operated by Dunamu, one of the highest-valued startups in South Korea, headquartered in Seoul. Pre-deal, Dunamu chair Song Chi-hyung held roughly 25-28% of shares. The November stock-swap acquisition by Naver Financial means Song emerges as Naver Financial’s largest shareholder with a 19.5% stake post-close. Naver Corp’s stake in Naver Financial drops from approximately 70% to the high teens through the swap dilution.

Upbit Statistics: Trading Volume and Top Pairs

• The headline 24-hour volume sits at $181.58 million, with Upbit’s 24-hour trading volume standing at $181.58 million, ranking the exchange #28 in global rankings.
• The five highest-volume pair groups on Upbit were USDT at $228.46 million, SOL at $115.29 million, DOOD at $59.69 million, XPL at $57.87 million and MNT at $48.70 million, figures that shift hour-by-hour as Korean retail flows rotate through narrative coins.
• CoinMarketCap’s recent capture put Upbit’s spot volume at $640,469,101.58 (about 8,326 BTC equivalent), illustrating how aggregator timestamps materially change the headline number.
• CoinMarketCap currently shows RED/KRW as Upbit’s most active pair at a 24-hour volume of $138,782,554.94, an example of how a single KRW pair can outpace several BTC-quoted pairs combined.
• Among individual KRW pairs Coinranking tracks, OPEN/KRW reached $16.69 million, SOL/KRW $16.52 million, VVV/KRW $11.30 million, BIO/KRW $9.42 million and PROS/KRW $6.71 million, distributing Korean won volume across narrative tokens rather than blue-chip pairs.
• Upbit hosts more than 300 trading pairs and more than 180 listed coins on the main Korean platform, with Coinranking’s broader cut recording 173 cryptocurrencies and 212 pairs across the venues it indexes for Upbit.
• Korean retail attention rotates faster than global crypto narratives, and the Upbit statistics in any given week reflect that turnover. A memecoin or new listing can dominate Upbit’s KRW pair tape for a single trading day, then return to single-digit volumes the next.

Upbit Statistics: Fee Schedule and Minimum Orders

• The headline KRW maker/taker rate sits at 0.05%, with Upbit’s KRW market charging 0.05% on both maker and taker orders, notably competitive compared to other trading pairs on the platform, establishing a clear cost gap with peer exchanges.
• Stop-limit orders on the KRW market carry a 0.139% rate, a meaningfully higher charge that traders rarely surface when comparing headline maker/taker numbers.
• BTC and USDT-quoted pairs both run at 0.25% maker and taker, creating the asymmetry that pulls Korean retail volume into KRW-denominated pairs rather than crypto-to-crypto markets.
• The minimum order on the KRW market sits at 5,000 KRW (roughly $3.50 at recent exchange rates), one of the lowest entry thresholds among major regulated exchanges globally.
• Traders crossing $5 million in 30-day spot volume see the maker/taker rate fall to 0.04%, a tier discount aimed at retaining the highest-volume Korean accounts.
• Upbit publicly states that it does not support leveraged or margin trading, a regulatory-driven choice that limits product complexity but also removes the most volume-intensive sleeve seen on global exchanges like Binance and OKX.
• The 0.05% KRW fee versus 0.25% crypto-pair fee is the single largest reason CoinLaw’s GSC data shows Korean traders search for “Upbit trading fee 0.05% KRW market” hundreds of times each quarter; the headline number is a clear win, and the asymmetry is the explanation.

What is Upbit’s trading fee on the KRW market?

Upbit charges 0.05% as the maker and taker rate for limit orders on its KRW market, the cheapest schedule in Korea. Stop-limit orders on the same market sit at 0.139%. Traders crossing $5 million in 30-day volume see the rate drop to 0.04%. The lower KRW rate is the structural reason Korean retail volume concentrates on won-denominated pairs.

What is the minimum order amount on Upbit?

Upbit’s KRW market minimum order is 5,000 KRW, roughly $3.50 at recent exchange rates. The low floor is part of why retail participation broadened so quickly during Korea’s user-growth peak. Other market types and pair groups carry their own minimums tied to the quote asset and the price tick rather than a single fiat figure.

Upbit Statistics: Regulatory History and Compliance Penalties

• Penalties peaked at 35.2 billion won (about $25 million) with a three-month new-user suspension, applied to a parent that first registered as a virtual asset service provider in 2021 and submitted its renewal application in August of the previous year under the Specified Financial Transactions Act.
• The Financial Intelligence Unit accepted Dunamu’s renewal filing on December 23, 2025, issuing a certificate of acceptance more than a year after the application went in.
• Dunamu became the first among Korea’s five major won-based exchange operators (alongside Bithumb, Coinone, Korbit and GOPAX) to complete the VASP renewal, required every three years.
• The FIU’s November 2025 enforcement order fined Dunamu 35.2 billion won (approximately $25 million) and imposed a three-month ban on new customer onboarding.
• The agency cited more than 700,000 AML and KYC violations, with approximately 530,000 specifically tied to KYC and suspicious-transaction reporting. Upbit’s KYC controls were the explicit failure surface.
• Dunamu filed an objection to the 35.2 billion won penalty, a procedural step that delays but does not nullify the FIU order.
• In March, the FSC framework set a ceiling at 20%, though regulators retain discretionary authority to permit exceptions of up to 34% through an enforcement decree, applied with a three-year grace period for Upbit and Bithumb and an additional three-year deferral for Coinone, Korbit and Gopax.
• South Korea classifies exchanges serving more than 11 million users as critical public infrastructure, importing a financial-stability framing onto the asset class.
• Tracking these three regulatory threads together (the renewal, the fine and the cap) reveals the Korean approach in the Upbit statistics: the exchange gets to operate, but with a tighter compliance perimeter and a forced break-up of concentrated ownership.

Why it matters: The FIU’s $25 million AML fine plus the 20% ownership cap together force structural change at the operator level even as the VASP renewal grants continuity, leaving a tighter compliance perimeter for the 11.13 million Korean crypto investors than prior cycles experienced before the duopoly framework took effect.

Source: FIU enforcement order, FSC ruling-party task force

Upbit Statistics: Security Incidents and the Lazarus Connection

• Anniversary-aligned losses bracket Upbit’s history (the $48.5 million 2019 ETH theft and the $30 million Solana drain in 2025), starting with Upbit losing about $48.5 million worth of Ethereum on November 27, 2019, in its first major hack, an incident that sat unattributed for almost five years.
• In November 2024, South Korean authorities formally confirmed that North Korean hacker groups Lazarus and Andariel orchestrated the 2019 theft of 342,000 ETH, the first official state attribution of a domestic exchange hack to North Korea.
• At current valuations, the 342,000 ETH stolen would equate to approximately 1.4 trillion won or roughly $1 billion, multiplying the original loss into a far larger figure.
• Investigators traced 57% of the stolen ETH being exchanged for Bitcoin at a 2.5% discount on three exchange sites likely created by North Korea, with the remaining cryptocurrency moving through 51 exchanges across 13 countries.
• Authorities recovered 4.8 Bitcoin valued at 600 million won through Swiss cooperation and returned the funds to Upbit, a rare partial recovery in cryptocurrency theft cases.
• On November 27, 2025, exactly six years later, Upbit reported abnormal withdrawals from a Solana hot wallet at 04:42 local time, totalling 44.5 billion won (about $30 million).
• The breach affected more than 20 tokens across the Solana ecosystem, including SOL, USDC, the TRUMP token, and various memecoins, with approximately $1.6 million worth of LAYER tokens successfully frozen by the exchange.
• will cover the entire amount of customer losses, Oh Kyung-seok, CEO of Dunamu, said in the company’s official notice issued hours after the Solana withdrawal event.
• The exact-anniversary timing of the November 27, 2025, incident, combined with the proximity to the Naver-Dunamu vote, has been read by Korean analysts as evidence of deliberate coordination, though no on-chain analyst has formally attributed the Solana drain to Lazarus at the time of publication.

Source: South Korean National Police Agency briefing, Upbit official notice, Wikipedia historical record

How big was the 2019 Upbit hack?

The 2019 hack drained about US$48.5 million worth of Ethereum from Upbit on November 27, 2019, with the 342,000 ETH stolen now equating to approximately 1.4 trillion won, or roughly $1 billion at current valuations. South Korean authorities formally confirmed that the North Korean hacker groups Lazarus and Andariel orchestrated the 2019 theft in November of last year, the first state-confirmed attribution of a domestic exchange hack to North Korea. Authorities recovered 4.8 Bitcoin through Swiss cooperation and returned the funds to Upbit.

Conclusion

The Upbit statistics through this year carry a paradox framed by three numbers (the 87% combined Korean share, the $10.3 billion Naver deal, and the 20% ownership cap): the exchange still commands roughly 87% of Korea’s crypto market alongside Bithumb and runs daily average volume near $3.7 billion, yet a $25 million FIU fine and a Solana hot wallet incident with losses approximately $30 million on November 27, 2025 gave Korean regulators all the cover they needed to impose the 20% ownership cap with discretionary exceptions of up to 34% that arrived in March. The all-stock deal valued at around $10.3 billion between Naver and Dunamu is the structural answer: Upbit becomes a node inside Korea’s biggest fintech, with Song Chi-hyung holding 19.5% post-close and the won-based stablecoin pipeline anchored to the combined entity.

Watch the three-year grace clock that began with the FSC framework, the closing timeline on the Naver deal, and whether the Solana-drain on-chain trail produces an attribution that matches the 2019 Lazarus precedent. The 0.05% KRW fee, the 5,000 KRW minimum order, and the 8+ million verified users primarily throughout the Asia-Pacific regions are not at risk in any of these threads. Upbit’s market position is. The combined regulatory, security and corporate signals will define whether the duopoly persists or fractures by the time the ownership cap binds.