South Korea's Two Major Crypto Exchanges Upbit and Bithumb See Revenues Nearly Halved in First Half of 2026
South Korea's two major crypto exchanges, Upbit and Bithumb, saw revenues decline by 49.1% and 48.7% respectively in the first half of 2026, primarily due to a drop in local trading volume.
Upbit's operator, Dunamu, reported a consolidated revenue of 408.1 billion KRW in the first half of the year, down from 801.9 billion KRW in the same period last year; operating profit fell 79.7% to 111.5 billion KRW, and net profit decreased 74.1% to 108.4 billion KRW.
Upbit's trading fee revenue was 395.5 billion KRW, a year-on-year decrease of 49.8%, accounting for about 97% of Dunamu's total revenue in the first half; this means fluctuations in trading volume almost directly translate into revenue and profit fluctuations for the platform.
Dunamu's revenue in the second quarter was 173.5 billion KRW, a quarter-on-quarter decrease of 26.1%; operating profit was 23.5 billion KRW, down 73.3% quarter-on-quarter and 84.6% year-on-year, indicating that the reduction in costs has a greater leverage effect on profit margins.
Bithumb's revenue in the first half was approximately 168.8 billion KRW, a year-on-year decrease of 48.7%. Its public briefing did not provide the same granularity of data on trading fee ratios, profits, and cost structures as Dunamu.
The total spot trading volume of five licensed KRW exchanges in South Korea fell to 146.4 billion USD in the second quarter, a quarter-on-quarter decrease of 49.5%; the shrinking market transactions have simultaneously pressured Upbit and Bithumb, which rely heavily on trading commissions.
Mechanically, the revenue of South Korean exchanges is highly dependent on the number of retail spot trades and volatility. A drop in trading volume immediately compresses fee income, while compliance, personnel, server, security, and market operation costs are difficult to reduce proportionally, leading to operating profits typically falling faster than revenue. Beneficiaries are trading platforms that can diversify income through derivatives, custody, institutional services, or overseas users; those under pressure are operators that heavily depend on local spot commissions and must continuously bear fixed costs of regulatory compliance.
Source: Public Information
ABAB AI Insight
Dunamu's revenue structure illustrates the cyclical nature of South Korean exchange models: approximately 96.9% of its revenue in the first half came from Upbit trading fees. The high trading volumes during the market's active period in 2025 can quickly expand revenue, but after a decline in trading activity in the first half of 2026, Dunamu's revenue nearly halved and operating profit dropped nearly 80%, indicating that exchanges primarily focused on retail spot trading are not low fixed-cost pure software businesses, but rather market infrastructures with strong operational leverage.
Capital flows are diversifying away from the local KRW spot market. Tiger Research estimates that South Korean investors generated about 3.5 billion USD in trading fee revenue for overseas exchanges in 2025, contributing approximately 900 million USD in the first half of 2026; meanwhile, the second-quarter spot trading volume of the five licensed local exchanges halved. The capital is not necessarily leaving crypto assets but may be shifting towards overseas platforms for derivatives, global liquidity, and more currency trading, causing local exchanges to lose some order flow and fee pools.
This can be contrasted with Coinbase expanding subscription services and institutional custody during a bear market, and Binance relying on global spot and derivatives liquidity to diversify away from a single country's cycle. Upbit's advantage remains its entry point for South Korean fiat and local brand, but its high dependence on single KRW spot trading leaves it lacking sufficient revenue buffers during sluggish trading. Bithumb's simultaneous revenue decline indicates that the issue is not just a change in market share of a particular platform, but a contraction of the overall local retail trading pool.
Essentially, this represents a transfer of pricing power: as South Korean users' trading demand migrates to overseas exchanges and non-localized products, the pricing power of order flow shifts accordingly. The mechanism is that the core asset of an exchange is not the license itself, but sustainable liquidity, tradable products, and user trading frequency; local regulatory licenses can provide fiat entry and compliance trust but cannot automatically retain active users seeking leverage, depth, and global currencies. The outflow of trading volume will first compress fees and then weaken the platform's ability to incentivize the market, invest in technology, and amortize compliance costs.
ABAB News · Cognitive Laws
- Exchanges do not sell coins; they sell volatility.
- Revenue depends on fees, profit depends on trading volume.
- Licenses retain entry, liquidity determines ownership.