Bithumb Achieves Legal Victory in South Korea as Court Lifts Six-Month Suspension

In a significant development, a South Korean court has annulled the six-month partial business suspension of Bithumb, as reported by Yonhap News. The decision was made by Judge Gong Hyeon-jin of the 2nd Administrative Division of the Seoul Administrative Court, who accepted Bithumb's application for a stay of execution on the same day it was submitted. However, it remains unclear whether the $24.6 million fine imposed by the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) in March has also been suspended. The FIU had imposed the fine and suspension due to alleged massive violations of local anti-money laundering regulations. Bithumb, one of South Korea's largest cryptocurrency exchanges, had filed a request with the court to lift the suspension and fine imposed by the FIU. The sanctions were a result of violations of the Act on Reporting and Using Specified Financial Transaction Information, according to the Financial Services Commission. The FIU had discovered that Bithumb had committed approximately 6.65 million violations, including 3.55 million instances of failure to verify customer identities and 3.04 million cases of failure to block transactions that should have been blocked. While the court's ruling is a positive development for Bithumb, it comes amidst reports that the Personal Information Protection Commission has launched an investigation into Upbit, Bithumb, and other platforms regarding the sharing of order books with overseas platforms. The case against Bithumb is part of South Korea's increased regulatory oversight of the cryptocurrency market. In 2025, the FIU had imposed a three-month partial suspension and a fine of 35.2 billion won on Dunamu, the operator of the country's largest exchange, Upbit, for compliance gaps. Korbit, a rival platform, had faced a smaller penalty of 2.73 billion won along with institutional warnings. Established in 2014, Bithumb is currently one of the largest exchanges in South Korea by trading volume, according to CoinGecko data. The lifting of the suspension comes two months after Bithumb mistakenly distributed billions of dollars worth of bitcoin to users.