Upbit denies high and expensive listing fee accusations

Upbit, one of the largest South Korean crypto exchanges, has denied accusations of charging brokerage fees for listing tokens on its platform, calling its accusers to provide concrete proof of such occurrence. 

The allegations were made by Wu Blockchain, a crypto news platform, when it shared a scoop on X (formerly Twitter) claiming that several projects paid huge intermediary fees to have their tokens listed on two of South Korea’s leading crypto exchanges, Upbit and Bithumb.

According to Wu Blockchain, the fees were approximately $2 million and $10 million, respectively, and they were orchestrated by intermediaries related to Upbit’s shareholders and market makers.

Some of the projects informed Wu Blockchain that they provided an intermediary fee ranging from 3% to 5% of the total token amount, before getting listed on Upbit successfully.

The news platform also reported that this wasn’t the case with all the seven projects they reached out to. According to them, three of the projects reported that they didn’t pay any intermediary fee before they got listed.

SCOOP: Several projects told WuBlockchain that they paid huge intermediary fees to have their tokens listed on South Korea's largest cryptocurrency exchanges, Upbit and Bithumb. The fees were approximately US$10 million and US$2 million respectively. The intermediaries are… pic.twitter.com/PODtooUaYd

— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) March 20, 2025

Upbit’s response and message to users

In response to these allegations, Upbit denied the allegations in a press release addressed to its users, stating, “Upbit does not allow the involvement of external agencies to assist or intermediate trading support, and all procedures are conducted directly by Upbit employees.”

The exchange also mentioned that it evaluates projects through a strict internal review process based on its trading support procedures and that it does not proceed with trading support under any financial compensation conditions.

The exchange urged users and projects to avoid companies or individuals that approach them for intermediary fees, claiming that they are illegal brokers and unrelated to Upbit.

The exchange also requested that Wu Blockchain share with them the list of digital assets listed on their platform that paid such intermediary fees as well as concrete evidence and supporting materials backing up the claim as they are setting up an investigation into the matter.

Upbit also asked users to report cases of intermediary interference in its press statement. In response to the request, Wu Blockchain mentioned that it couldn’t disclose that information as it has to protect its source.

Upbit’s battles with regulators

Upbit recently had a run-in with South Korea’s Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), which accused the platform of KYC violations numbering thousands. The regulator also discovered that Upbit facilitated transactions with unregistered foreign service providers, which violates South Korea’s specific Financial Information Act.

All these violations led to the regulators sanctioning the platform on February 25, 2025, placing a ban on the platform’s ability to onboard new users. New users on the platform won’t be able to deposit or perform withdrawals from March 7 until June 6. The parent company of Upbit, Dunamu, has appealed the move and is working on overturning the decision.

In a move that signified that the company may be actively working to be on the right side of the law, the platform announced earlier today that it will be revealing six companies suspected of engaging in Ponzi fraud via the platform and will be limiting the withdrawal of asset to the companies in accordance the Enforcement Decree of the Virtual Asset User Protection Act of South Korea.

In its concluding post on X, Wu Blockchain urged the South Korean regulators to look into the matter, especially regarding the market markers. Given Upbit’s current progress, if these intermediary fee and market marker allegations turn out to be true, it will be a major setback for the platform. This would bring back more scrutiny on the platform which may be seeing itself pay out millions of dollars in fines due to previous violations.

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