Bithumb, one of South Korea’s leading crypto exchanges, has been fined by the country’s anti-money laundering and anti-terrorist financing agency.
South Korea’s Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) imposed a fine of 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 Information on Financial Transactions, the Financial Services Commission said, according to local media.
According to the FIU, Bithumb committed around 6.65 million breaches. About 3.55 million involved failures in required customer identity verification, while 3.04 million were related to cases where the exchange did not properly block transactions that should have been blocked.
The suspension targets services for newly registered users. Existing clients will still be able to trade and move funds on the platform, according to initial reports regarding these sanctions.
Regulators also imposed sanctions on staff. Bithumb’s CEO received a reprimand warning, while the exchange’s chief reporting officer was suspended for six months.
The violations emerged during on-site inspections of South Korea’s five largest cryptocurrency exchanges, Upbit, Bithumb, Coinone, Korbit and Gopax, conducted between 2024 and 2025.
The case comes as South Korean regulators tighten oversight of the crypto market. Last year, the FIU 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 non-compliance. Korbit, a rival platform, faced a minor fine of 2.73 billion won, along with institutional warnings.
Bithumb, founded in 2014, is among the largest exchanges in South Korea by trading volume, according to data from CoinGecko. The partial suspension comes just a month after Bithumb mistakenly distributed billions of dollars worth of bitcoins to users.
CoinDesk reached out to Bithumb for comment but did not receive a response at the time of writing.
