Bithumb Sets Its Sights on a Historic 2028 IPO

Bithumb, South Korea's second-largest cryptocurrency exchange, announced on 3 August 2026 a three-phase roadmap targeting an initial public offering in 2028. A listing would make it the first crypto-native company to go public on a Korean stock exchange, although the company has already pushed back its IPO timetable several times since it first signaled the move in late 2023.

When Bithumb appointed Samsung Securities as underwriter in November 2023, it initially aimed for a listing in the second half of 2025. That deadline was later moved to 2027, and the exchange has now reset it to 2028, saying the date is "subject to change depending on shifts in market conditions and review schedules." Under the new roadmap, Bithumb will upgrade internal controls and switch its accounting from K-GAAP to Korean International Financial Reporting Standards in 2026, file for a preliminary listing review with the Korea Exchange in 2027, and complete the IPO in 2028 if regulators approve. Samjong KPMG has been retained as IPO adviser through the end of 2027.

The delays partly stem from a system error in February 2026, when a promotional campaign glitch credited hundreds of customers with 620,000 BTC instead of 620,000 won. Bitcoin's price on Bithumb's won pair briefly fell from roughly 98 million won to 81 million won. Bithumb initially said about 125 BTC remained unrecovered, but that outstanding amount had fallen to roughly 7 BTC by April 2026, becoming the subject of a provisional-attachment lawsuit. South Korea's Financial Supervisory Service opened an internal-controls probe into the error, and the Financial Intelligence Unit imposed a 36.8 billion won fine and a six-month partial business suspension in March 2026 over anti-money laundering violations, a sanction later paused by a court injunction.

Regulatory conditions also complicate the listing. Korean authorities do not legally recognize cryptocurrencies as financial products, and the Korea Exchange has never approved a crypto-native issuer. A proposed 20% ownership cap on major shareholders of virtual-asset service providers, agreed in March 2026, adds another hurdle, though it includes a three-year grace period. Bithumb Holdings currently holds a 73% stake as part of a restructuring that is spinning off non-exchange businesses under Bithumb A.

Comparable overseas listings have traded poorly: Bullish is roughly 71% below its August 2025 opening price, and Gemini trades roughly 89% below its September 2025 IPO price. Bithumb reported about 651 billion won ($430 million) in 2025 revenue and added 1.74 million new customer accounts, giving it more than 30% domestic market share. Rival Upbit, operated by Dunamu, is pursuing its own IPO with Naver Financial. Kraken shelved its planned US IPO in March 2026 and was valued at about $20 billion in a private funding round in May 2026.