---
title: "South Korean Finance Regulators to Investigate Upbit’s Monopoly: Report"
url: https://diffcoin.com/south-korean-finance-regulators-to-investigate-upbits-monopoly-report/
description: "South Korea’s Financial Services Commission has said it will look into the monopoly structure of the crypto asset market centered around the Upbit exchange."
published: 2024-10-10
updated: 2024-10-10
author: "Mila"
site: "Diffcoin"
---

# South Korean Finance Regulators to Investigate Upbit’s Monopoly: Report

Financial Services Commission Chairman Kim Byung-hwan said he would “look into it” regarding the market domination of the country’s leading crypto exchange Upbit.

In a national assembly meeting, legislator Lee Kang-il raised issues about Upbit’s dominance and its close partnership with the local bank, K-Bank.

The online banking firm holds a significant portion of Upbit’s deposits, according to an Oct. 10 report in local media.

## Monopoly Concerns

“I am aware of the issue of Upbit’s monopolistic system,” Lee said before adding [translation]:

> “The monopolistic trend toward one company, Upbit, started after its business partnership with K-Bank.”

He then raised an issue about Upbit taking up a significant portion of K Bank’s deposits, which is set to undergo an initial public offering (IPO) soon.

The lawmaker said Upbit accounts for around 20% of K-Bank’s 22 trillion KRW (around $16.3 billion) deposits, adding, “If Upbit transactions are cut off, a bank run on K-Bank will occur.” He was also critical of the bank, questioning whether it was reasonable for such an organization with a profit margin of less than 1% to offer 2.1% for Upbit customer deposits.

> “The influence between Upbit and K-Bank violates the principle of separating finance from industry,” he added.

FSC Chairman Kim responded by stating that the IPO review of K-Bank has been thoroughly examined,” adding, “Since we have a virtual asset committee, we will review the [Upbit] situation comprehensively.”

This week, South Korea’s Ministry of Strategy and Finance announced that it is reviewing measures to regulate stablecoins more strictly.

## Upbit Huge in South Korea

According to CoinGecko, the 2017-established centralized exchange Upbit has a daily trading volume of $1.2 billion. Around 10% of that volume is the BTC/KRW pair, with altcoins such as Chilliz (CHZ) and Sui (SUI), also popular among Korean crypto traders.

Trading volume on the exchange spiked to $15 billion during the 2024 market peak in mid-March. Comparatively, the world’s leading exchange, Binance, has a currency daily volume of around $12.5 billion.

Earlier this year, *CryptoPotato* reported that Upbit dominated 80% of South Korea’s crypto trading and was ranked fifth globally. Bithumb is Korea’s second-largest crypto exchange, with $700 million in daily volume.

In late September, Upbit announced a change in its privacy policy to store user data on US Amazon Web Services (AWS) servers, effective from Oct. 1.

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[Source link](https://cryptopotato.com/south-korean-finance-regulators-to-investigate-upbits-monopoly-report/)