Headline: Seoul court pauses Bithumb’s six-month business suspension in legal reprieve for major crypto exchange
A Seoul administrative court on Thursday granted Bithumb a temporary legal reprieve, overturning a six-month partial business suspension imposed by South Korea’s Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), Yonhap News reports.
Judge Gong Hyeon-jin of the 2nd Administrative Division of the Seoul Administrative Court accepted Bithumb’s application for a stay of execution on the same day it was filed. The court order suspends the FIU’s enforcement of the suspension for now, but it remains unclear whether the related 36.8 billion won (about $24.6 million) fine has also been stayed.
The March sanctions from the FIU accused Bithumb — one of South Korea’s largest crypto exchanges — of widespread breaches of anti-money-laundering rules under the Act on Reporting and Using Specified Financial Transaction Information. The regulator alleged some 6.65 million violations: roughly 3.55 million instances of failing to perform required customer identity verification and about 3.04 million instances where the exchange did not block transactions it should have.
This ruling gives Bithumb temporary relief from the operational limits the FIU sought to impose. But the development arrives amid broader scrutiny of South Korean exchanges: the Personal Information Protection Commission has reportedly opened probes into Upbit, Bithumb and other platforms over the sharing of order books with overseas venues.
The case is part of an ongoing tightening of oversight in South Korea’s crypto sector. In 2025 the FIU imposed a three-month partial suspension and a 35.2 billion won fine on Dunamu (operator of Upbit) for compliance deficiencies; Korbit also received a smaller penalty and institutional warnings. Founded in 2014, Bithumb remains among the country’s top exchanges by trading volume (CoinGecko). The court decision to lift the suspension comes two months after Bithumb accidentally distributed billions of dollars’ worth of bitcoin to users.
For now, the stay restores Bithumb’s ability to operate normally while legal proceedings continue, but questions remain about the fate of the fine and the broader regulatory review of Korea’s crypto platforms.
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