Bithumb

Bithumb is a major South Korean centralized cryptocurrency exchange founded in 2014 under the name Xcoin before rebranding in 2015. The Seoul-based platform focuses primarily on spot cryptocurrency pairs traded directly against the South Korean won (KRW), handling over $733M in 24-hour trading volume across roughly 483 assets and 495 trading pairs as of October 2026.

Ownership and leadership

The exchange is operated by Bithumb Co., Ltd. and was founded by former CEO Kim Dae-sik. In October 2018, BK Global Consortium agreed to acquire a majority stake in BTC Holding Co., the platform's controlling investor. Heo Back-Young, who initially joined as Head of Compliance in 2017 after nearly two decades in financial technology at Citibank and ING Securities, assumed the role of CEO in May 2020. The company employs between 201 and 500 staff in Seoul.

Trading mechanics and fees

Bithumb functions as a custodial spot trading venue. Registered users can deposit fiat currency using domestic South Korean bank transfers. Spot trading fees start at 0.04%. Fiat KRW withdrawals carry a flat fee of 1,000 KRW, while crypto withdrawals incur asset-specific routing costs, with fees averaging around 1% across roughly 424 asset and network routes. Beyond manual web and mobile trading, the platform provides automated order routing through its public and private Open API (versions 1.0 and 2.0), as well as custodial staking and lending products.

Regional availability and verification

Access is tightly restricted by South Korean regulatory mandates. Registration requires mandatory real-name identity verification linked directly to a supported domestic South Korean bank account. International users, including traders residing in the United States, the United Kingdom and the European Union, are excluded from opening accounts and trading on the exchange.

Security history and platform risks

Bithumb operates under South Korean AML oversight via the KoFIU and maintains domestic Information Security Management System (ISMS) certification, though it lacks an ISO 27001 certification. The platform discloses digital asset balances via a dedicated public endpoint, allowing traders to check daily coin holdings coverage, but does not provide Merkle-tree cryptographic proof of reserves.

Holding custodial assets on the platform involves counterparty risk and exposure to historical security challenges. Hackers compromised an employee computer to extract user data in June 2017, and the exchange lost roughly $32 million in a June 2018 security breach. An apparent insider exploit resulted in another $20 million loss across EOS and XRP in March 2019. In February 2026, an operational error mistakenly credited about 620,000 BTC across 695 accounts; the exchange reversed the erroneous transfers within 35 minutes and recovered 99.7% of the funds.