Bithumb secures a legal victory in South Korea as a local judge lifts a six-month operational suspension
South Korea’s financial regulatory body levied a $24.6 million penalty on Bithumb alongside a partial suspension that took effect last month.
Key points:
— A South Korean court has annulled a six-month partial business suspension imposed on Bithumb, one of the nation’s leading cryptocurrency exchanges, while leaving the status of a $24.6 million fine uncertain.
— Regulators had alleged that Bithumb committed approximately 6.65 million breaches of anti-money laundering regulations, including failing to verify customer identities and neglecting to halt transactions that should have been blocked.
— This decision arrives amid heightened regulatory scrutiny of South Korea’s crypto industry, including a new data-sharing investigation targeting Bithumb, Upbit, and other platforms, following Bithumb’s recent accidental distribution of billions of dollars in bitcoin to users.
A South Korean court overturned Bithumb’s six-month partial business suspension on Thursday, according to Yonhap News.
The news agency cited legal sources, stating that the 2nd Administrative Division of the Seoul Administrative Court’s Judge Gong Hyeon-jin accepted Bithumb’s application for a stay of execution on the same day it was filed. There was no clarification on whether a 36.8 billion won ($24.6 million) fine was also suspended. South Korea’s financial watchdog imposed the fine and suspension in March, alleging massive violations of local anti-money laundering rules.
Bithumb, one of South Korea’s largest crypto exchanges, filed a request with the court requesting it end the suspension and fine imposed by the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) in March along after the regulator said it discovered the exchange had committed millions of violations of the country’s anti-money laundering rules.
The sanctions stemmed from violations of the Act on Reporting and Using Specified Financial Transaction Information, the Financial Services Commission said in March.
The FIU said Bithumb committed about 6.65 million violations, of which 3.55 million involved failures to carry out required customer identity verification, while 3.04 million were related to cases where the exchange failed to properly block transactions that should have been blocked.
While the court ruling ending the suspension is good news for the exchange, it follows reports that South Korea’s Personal Information Protection Commission has initiated a probe into Upbit, Bithumb and other platforms regarding the sharing of order books with overseas platforms.
The case against Bithumb is part of South Korean regulators’ increased oversight of the cryptocurrency market. In 2025, the FIU handed Dunamu, the operator of the country’s largest exchange, Upbit, a three-month partial suspension and a 35.2 billion won fine for compliance gaps. Korbit, a rival platform, faced a smaller penalty of 2.73 billion won along with institutional warnings.
Bithumb was established in 2014 and currently ranks among the largest exchanges in South Korea by trading volume, according to CoinGecko data. The end of the suspension comes two months after Bithumb mistakenly distributed billions of dollars worth of bitcoin to users.