Bithumb, one of South Korea’s leading crypto exchanges, has been fined by the country’s anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing agency.
South Korea’s Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) fined 36.8 billion won ($24.6 million) and ordered a six-month partial suspension after finding millions of violations of the country’s anti-money laundering rules.
The sanctions stem from violations of the law on reporting and use of specific financial transaction information, the Financial Services Commission said, according to local media.
According to the FIU, Bithumb has committed approximately 6.65 million violations. About 3.55 million involved failures in 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.
The suspension targets services aimed at newly registered users. Existing customers will still be able to trade and move funds on the platform, according to initial reports on these sanctions.
Regulators also imposed sanctions on staff. Bithumb’s chief executive received a warning, while the exchange’s reporting manager was suspended for six months.
The violations surfaced during on-site inspections of South Korea’s five largest crypto exchanges, Upbit, Bithumb, Coinone, Korbit and Gopax, conducted between 2024 and 2025.
The case comes as South Korean regulators step up oversight of the crypto market. Last year, the FIU gave Dunamu, the operator of the country’s largest exchange, Upbit, a three-month partial suspension and a fine of 35.2 billion won for compliance failures. Korbit, a rival platform, faced a lesser fine of 2.73 billion won, as well as institutional warnings.
Bithumb, founded in 2014, ranks among South Korea’s largest exchanges by trading volume, according to CoinGecko data. The partial suspension comes just a month after Bithumb mistakenly distributed billions of dollars of bitcoin to users.
CoinDesk reached out to Bithumb for comment but did not receive a response at the time of writing.
