South Korea’s Bithumb crypto exchange delays IPO until after 2028 – Details

Bithumb, a South Korean crypto trade’s preliminary public providing (IPO), which was earlier deliberate for 2027, has now shifted to someday after 2028.

In accordance with a latest report printed by Maeil Enterprise Information Korea, Bithumb CFO Jeong Sang-gyun stated that the agency had signed an “IPO advisory contract with Samjong KPMG” and added, 

We’re at present within the strategy of getting ready to strengthen accounting insurance policies and inner controls, and as we’re pursuing the business’s first itemizing, we’re conducting thorough inner verification.

Cause behind the delay

The agency believes this delay shouldn’t be due to negligence however a “strategic transfer” to “maximise company worth” with the ever-changing legal guidelines and rules.

Right here, Sang-gyun refers back to the Framework Act on Digital Property, which is all set to be permitted by H2 2026. 

Moreover, there are a couple of shareholders who’re anticipating the corporate to start out paying dividends once more. That is in correlation to the” enhancements in efficiency”, however in flip, no dividends to the shareholders.

The truth is, one shareholder even in contrast Bithumb to its competitor Dunamu, which pays dividends. In response to this, CEO Lee Jae-won argued, 

Final 12 months, contemplating the aggressive market circumstances, we concentrated capital on increasing the corporate’s market share and rising company worth.

Bithumb’s 2025 stats and present market dynamics

This coincided with the agency’s twelfth fiscal 12 months monetary report permitted on the final day of Q1 2026. In accordance with the report, the crypto trade has recorded whole property value 3.3249 trillion and whole liabilities nearing 2.461 trillion in 2025.

Nonetheless, in 2025, Bithumb didn’t see any talks round IPO heating up.  

But, regardless of such bottlenecks, Bithumb buying and selling quantity stood at $523,156,667 at press time, after a ten.2% prior to now 24 hours.

Moreover, as per CryptoQuant, the Bithumb’s outflow chart confirmed that extra Bitcoin [BTC] was being deposited than withdrawn.

Merely put, there’s a surge in promoting stress, however the sideways value motion of Bitcoin hints that bears and bulls try to steadiness issues out. 

This adopted a latest incident whereby the trade was caught up in an investigation. The investigation was for sending over $40 billion value of Bitcoin to clients, unintentionally to customers.

All this may need pushed Bithumb to rethink its timeline for IPO to make issues work in its favour.

Closing Abstract

• Bithumb’s delay seems to be like a strategic delay, not merely indicators of negligence or procrastination.
• Rising shareholder dissatisfaction displays an enormous hole between the corporate’s revenue and traders’ reward.