Korea's 17 crypto exchanges made an operating profit of KRW 81.6 billion (Korean won; about $60 million at the Oct. 1, 2026 Seoul close of KRW 1,358.4 per $1) in the first half of 2026. That is 78% less than the KRW 374.8 billion (about $276 million) they made in the second half of 2025. Over a similar stretch, Bitcoin fell 33%, from $87,509 at the end of last year to $58,559 at the end of June.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The two numbers measure different things. The 78% compares half-year results of 17 exchanges, including Upbit and Bithumb (second half of 2025 vs. first half of 2026), while the 33% compares prices at two points in time (end of 2025 vs. end of June). The figures come from a survey released Oct. 1 by the Korea Financial Intelligence Unit (KoFIU, the anti-money-laundering watchdog under the Financial Services Commission) and the Financial Supervisory Service.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Exchanges collect a fee every time people buy or sell, whether coin prices rise or fall. So you might expect them to hold up better than coin prices in a downturn, but their profit fell far more. The amount people traded, which fees are charged on, fell 44%, while the cost of earning that money fell only 17%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
An exchange's main source of revenue is trading fees. Every time someone buys or sells a coin, the exchange takes a slice of the trade. Fees come in whether coin prices rise or fall, but how much depends on how much people trade. Trading volume is the coin price times the amount traded, so when prices fall, the same number of coins traded is worth less, and when sentiment cools and people trade fewer coins, volume falls even further.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Average daily trading volume in Korea was about KRW 3.1 trillion in the first half, down 44% from about KRW 5.4 trillion in the second half of last year. Over each six-month period, the total fell from KRW 1,001 trillion to KRW 555 trillion. Sales at the 17 exchanges fell 41%, from KRW 973.6 billion to KRW 576.8 billion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Put simply, exchange sales followed trading volume down, not coin prices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Subtract operating profit from sales and you get what the exchanges spent (a BITPRESS calculation). In the first half, sales of KRW 576.8 billion minus costs of KRW 495.2 billion leaves an operating profit of KRW 81.6 billion. Costs fell only 17% from KRW 598.8 billion in the second half of last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While sales fell by KRW 396.8 billion, costs fell by just KRW 103.6 billion, and the remaining KRW 293.2 billion came out of profit. That is why the profit drop (78%) was about 1.8 times the drop in trading volume (44%). Even when trading slows, exchanges keep paying for security, monitoring for suspicious trades, regulatory compliance and running the service.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Think of a highway toll booth. Fewer cars mean less toll revenue, but the cost of running the booth doesn't fall nearly as much. Unlike a highway, though, the number of cars at a crypto exchange can drop by nearly half in six months, depending on the market mood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dunamu, the company that runs Upbit and the stock app Stockplus, posted consolidated operating revenue of KRW 408.1 billion in the first half, down 49.1% from KRW 801.9 billion a year earlier. Operating profit fell 79.7%, from KRW 549.1 billion to KRW 111.5 billion, and its operating margin dropped from 68.5% to 27.3%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Bithumb's first-half sales also fell 48.7% from a year earlier to KRW 168.8 billion, and its operating profit fell 83.4%, from KRW 90.1 billion to KRW 14.9 billion. Adding losses from the falling value of coins it held, it posted a net loss of KRW 108.7 billion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
These company figures come from each firm's own filings and compare with the first half of last year, so they are counted differently from the 17-exchange total (compared with the second half of last year). Don't add them up or try to match them. Dunamu's operating profit fell 73.3% from KRW 88 billion in the first quarter to KRW 23.5 billion in the second, leaving a second-quarter operating margin of 13.5%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Won deposits (cash customers park in exchange accounts to buy coins) fell 35%, from KRW 8.1 trillion at the end of last year to KRW 5.2 trillion at the end of June. Bithumb said its weaker results reflected \"the influence of investors at home and abroad shifting their interest to stock markets such as AI (artificial intelligence) and semiconductors, as the U.S. hawkish interest-rate stance drags on.\" That is one company's explanation, and we found no data showing the money actually moved into stocks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The number of accounts able to trade rose 0.4% to 11.175 million. That counts each account a person opens at different exchanges separately, so it isn't the number of people. Accounts holding nothing or less than KRW 1 million numbered 8.63 million, or 77.2%, while accounts holding KRW 100 million or more fell from 170,000 to 110,000.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Put simply, the number of accounts held steady, but fewer of them hold large sums. The survey contains no data showing that this caused the drop in trading.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The same thing happened in 2022, when coin prices fell for a long stretch. Dunamu's sales fell 66.2%, from KRW 3.7045 trillion in 2021 to KRW 1.2492 trillion in 2022, while operating profit fell 75.2%, from KRW 3.2713 trillion to KRW 810.1 billion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If costs don't move as much as sales, this can also work in reverse. Unless costs rise sharply, a large share of the extra fees from a pickup in trading could end up as profit. Bitcoin was at $84,566 at 10 a.m. Oct. 2 (CoinMarketCap), 44% above its end-of-June price.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But second-half trading volume data isn't out yet. Volume, not coin prices, is what moves profit, so a rise in coin prices alone doesn't mean profit went up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Naver Financial, the finance arm of Korean internet company Naver, is in the process of making Dunamu a wholly owned subsidiary in a deal worth about KRW 20 trillion. As of a July 6 filing, the shareholders' meeting is set for Nov. 19 and the share swap for Dec. 31. The schedule has already been pushed back twice, and government reviews, including merger approval from the Korea Fair Trade Commission, are still pending.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Once the deal closes, the chain will run Naver, then Naver Financial, then Dunamu, and Upbit's profit, which swings with trading volume, will sit inside the Naver group. Bithumb has also set a goal of listing its shares (an IPO) in 2028.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A crypto exchange's profit follows trading volume, not coin prices, and its costs don't shrink as fast as its sales. That is why, when trading volume fell 44%, the 17 exchanges' operating profit fell 78%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With the same structure, profit could also move more than sales when trading picks up. With Dunamu's operating margin down to 13.5% in the second quarter, even a small change in trading volume could move its margin a lot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The one line to remember: if trading volume stays flat, rising coin prices don't guarantee a recovery in exchange profits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sources Glossary<\/strong> BITPRESS articles are information to help your investment decisions, not a recommendation to buy or sell any stock or coin. Investment decisions and their results are your own responsibility.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \ucf54\uc778\uac70\ub798\uc18c\ub294 \ucf54\uc778\uac12\uc774 \uc624\ub974\ub4e0 \ub0b4\ub9ac\ub4e0 \uc0ac\uace0\ud314 \ub54c\ub9c8\ub2e4 \uc218\uc218\ub8cc\ub97c \ubc1b\ub294\ub370, \ube44\ud2b8\ucf54\uc778 \uac12\uc774 33% \ube60\uc9c0\ub294 \ub3d9\uc548 \uc5c5\ube44\ud2b8\u00b7\ube57\uc378\uc744 \ud3ec\ud568\ud55c \uad6d\ub0b4 17\uac1c \uac70\ub798\uc18c\uc758 \uc601\uc5c5\uc774\uc775\uc740 78% \uc904\uc5c8\ub2e4. \uc218\uc218\ub8cc\uac00 \ubd99\ub294 \uc0ac\uace0\ud310 \uae08\uc561\uc774 44% \uc904\uc5c8\ub294\ub370 \ube44\uc6a9\uc740 17%\ub9cc \uc904\uc5c8\uae30 \ub54c\ubb38\uc774\ub2e4.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3549,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"bitpress_en_title":"","bitpress_en_desc":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[150,862,469,57,134,464,56,999,1021,363],"class_list":["post-3548","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-crypto","tag-150","tag-862","tag-469","tag-57","tag-134","tag-464","tag-56","tag-999","tag-1021","tag-363"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
https:\/\/www.newspim.com\/news\/view\/20261001000371<\/a>
https:\/\/m.sedaily.com\/article\/20097090<\/a>
https:\/\/cointelegraph.com\/news\/south-korea-crypto-exchange-profits-fall-78-percent<\/a>
https:\/\/www.venturesquare.net\/1106194<\/a>
https:\/\/www.fntimes.com\/html\/view.php?ud=20260818132629690f4390e77d_18<\/a>
https:\/\/www.etoday.co.kr\/news\/view\/2236463<\/a>
https:\/\/news.mtn.co.kr\/news-detail\/2026070619495471776<\/a>
https:\/\/biz.heraldcorp.com\/article\/10799834<\/a>
https:\/\/www.ittimes.com\/news\/articleView.html?idxno=87232<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Trading value<\/strong> \u2014 The total value of everything people bought and sold over a period; it is the basis of an exchange's fee revenue.
Operating profit<\/strong> \u2014 What a company keeps from sales of its core business after operating costs such as salaries and IT.
Operating margin<\/strong> \u2014 The share of each KRW 100 of sales left over as operating profit.
Won deposits<\/strong> \u2014 Cash customers park in exchange accounts to buy coins: money waiting to be invested.
Share swap<\/strong> \u2014 A deal in which one company gives its own shares to another company's shareholders in exchange for all of that company's shares, making it a wholly owned subsidiary.
Upbit and Bithumb<\/strong> \u2014 Korea's No. 1 and No. 2 crypto exchanges by market share, where Koreans buy and sell coins in won. Dunamu is the company that runs Upbit.
Naver<\/strong> \u2014 A major Korean internet company that runs Korea's most-used search portal; its finance arm, Naver Financial, is taking over Dunamu.<\/p>\n\n\n\n