South Korea's Top 5 Crypto Exchanges Suffered 57 Hacking and System Incidents in 6 Years, Paid $5.1M in Compensation

According to Korean media reports, South Korea's five major crypto exchanges—Upbit, Bithumb, Coinone, Korbit, and Gopax—experienced 57 hacking attacks and system failures from 2020 to April 2026, with total compensation reaching approximately 7 billion Korean won (about $5.1 million). Upbit reported the highest number of incidents with 26 cases, followed by Bithumb with 14 cases, Gopax with 8 cases, Coinone with 6 cases, and Korbit with 3 cases.

Notably, Bithumb compensated 2.5 billion won ($1.8 million) for a February 2026 BTC misdistribution error, while Upbit paid 790 million won ($570,000) for a November 2025 hacking incident and 3.2 billion won ($2.3 million) for a December 2024 system outage. System failure compensation totaled approximately 3.21 billion won for Upbit and 3.2 billion won for Bithumb, while Korbit and Gopax provided no compensation.