As trading in South Korea’s stock market cooled, competition between crypto exchanges Upbit and Bithumb heated up. Over the past month, both exchanges sharply increased the pace of new listings, with each adding 17 KRW-denominated trading assets. That was well above their usual first-half pace of around six to 10 per month. Against a backdrop of weak overall crypto volume, the contest has turned into a fight for existing capital and retail attention.
Korean stocks surged while crypto activity faded
In the first half of the year, South Korea’s equity market and crypto market moved in opposite directions.
According to data from the Korea Exchange, average daily KOSPI turnover stood at KRW 27.06 trillion in January and rose to KRW 32.23 trillion in February, setting what was then a record. By May, daily turnover had climbed to KRW 50.22 trillion, and it stayed elevated at KRW 50.35 trillion in June, nearly double the level seen at the start of the year.
The rally was concentrated to a large extent in major semiconductor names such as Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, helping drive both price gains and a wealth effect. With the KOSPI rising quickly, retail money flowed into stocks. Local crypto trading in South Korea, already short on momentum, shrank further during that period.
CoinGecko data cited in the report showed that total second-quarter trading volume across the five KRW-based exchanges — Upbit, Bithumb, Coinone, Korbit and Gopax — came to about $146.43 billion, down 49.5% from $289.69 billion in the same period of 2025. Among the two largest platforms, Upbit’s trading volume fell 54% year over year and Bithumb’s dropped 41.7%.
For Korean investors, stocks were plainly the hotter market in the first half of the year. Crypto was not. During that stretch, adding more altcoins or running exchange campaigns did little to compete with the returns and volatility available in equities.
Listing activity at Upbit and Bithumb stayed close to normal, or slowed somewhat, at roughly six to 10 tokens per month. In the second quarter, when Korean stocks were at their hottest, Bithumb added only 22 tokens, well below the 33 it listed in the same period of 2025.
The pace changed in the third quarter
That started to shift in the third quarter.
After peaking in May and June, average daily KOSPI turnover fell to KRW 36.88 trillion in July, a month-on-month drop of about 26.8%. By Aug. 9, according to Korea Exchange statistics cited in the report, the August figure had slipped further to KRW 26.28 trillion, below the level at the start of the year.
Korea Exchange data also showed that individual investors’ share of KOSPI trading dropped from 48.19% in January to 31.23% in July. Investor deposits, which the article describes as standby funds for the securities market, fell from a peak of KRW 139.69 trillion on June 4 to KRW 104.14 trillion at the end of July, a decline of about 25.5% in two months.
After the first-half frenzy, both retail participation and off-market waiting capital in stocks began to cool from their highs. Around the same time, Upbit and Bithumb began to speed up listings.
From early July to Aug. 11, Upbit added 17 KRW trading assets in a little over a month. It also listed eight new tokens that were available only in BTC and USDT markets. Compared with the first-half norm of roughly six to 10 new listings per month, that amounted to at least two months’ worth of regular additions. Bithumb matched that pace, also adding 17 KRW trading assets.
PANews said it learned that, despite earlier industry talk about high listing fees, some projects involved in the recent batch of listings said they only learned about the listings after the fact and did not pay listing fees.
The report said it was unclear whether management at the two exchanges adjusts listing volume based on changes in KOSPI turnover. Still, from the standpoint of user competition, the timing looked more favorable than it did in the first half.
When stocks were offering a large number of fast-rising names and high-volatility trades every day, new token listings were not enough to grab much retail attention. Once the wealth effect in equities weakened, exchanges had more room to draw risk-seeking traders back with new assets, short-term price swings and reward campaigns.
CoinGecko data showed that as of Aug. 11, Upbit’s total trading volume stood at about $492 million, up 116.7% over the previous 24 hours. Among that activity, KRW trading assets added since July, including CAP, GRVT, HOME and GEOD, ranked among the leading names by volume. Just nine recently added assets accounted for nearly one-fifth of the platform’s 24-hour trading volume.
Competition is increasingly about redistributing existing demand
Frequent token listings may create fresh trading themes, but they have not been enough to reverse the broader contraction in South Korea’s crypto market.
From July 1 to July 27, cumulative trading volume across the country’s top five exchanges fell 16.9% from the same period of the previous month. During that stretch, Upbit’s volume declined 10.0% to about KRW 11.6943 trillion, yet its market share rose from 62.3% to 67.4%.
That suggests the demand generated by new listings is, at least for now, being redistributed within an existing pool rather than signaling a broad return of fresh capital.
For Korean exchanges, that matters. The article said Upbit and Bithumb rely almost entirely on trading fees for revenue, leaving them more dependent on transaction volume than large global exchanges.
In that environment, the two venues are choosing increasingly similar assets. Based on DAXA data and exchange announcements, the report found that in the second quarter Upbit and Bithumb listed nine of the same assets on the same day. If projects listed by both within a few days of each other are included, the total rises to 14. In the same period, the two exchanges together accounted for about 96% of trading volume across South Korea’s five KRW-based exchanges.
The listing battle is playing out on two levels. First, Upbit and Bithumb need to cover popular assets quickly so that new demand is not captured by the rival platform alone. Second, with South Korea’s crypto market shrinking overall, what they are really competing for is a limited pool of retail risk capital and attention.
That may not be enough to revive the whole market. But for the exchanges, continuing to create new trading targets and short-term opportunities to keep limited funds on their own platforms may be the most they can realistically achieve right now.