Bithumb outlines 2028 stock market listing plan amid regulatory challenges

Bithumb has set out a three-stage path to a stock market listing in 2028, telling customers on Monday it will spend this year upgrading internal controls and preparing to switch accounting standards, then file for preliminary listing review in 2027. The exchange competes with Dunamu-operated Upbit for South Korea's domestic market.

The notice is framed almost entirely around trust. Bithumb says it is rebuilding risk management to the standard required of regulated financial firms, moving from Korean accounting standard K-GAAP to the global K-IFRS standard, and strengthening compliance monitoring to institutional-finance level. It has split off Bithumb Asset to separate its business lines and, it says, remove scope for conflicts of interest, and has engaged domestic and overseas underwriters, law firms and accountants. It also promises regular disclosure of its finances and its own crypto holdings.

The record

The IPO roadmap comes as Bithumb faces a slew of legal and regulatory challenges.

In February, a display error credited thousands of Bithumb users with Bitcoin they did not own. Lawmakers criticized regulators over the handling of it, investigators examined the compensation arrangements, and the exchange went to court to recover coins from users who would not return them.

In March, financial regulators fined the exchange $24.5 million and ordered a six-month partial suspension over anti-money-laundering and know-your-customer failures. A court blocked the order in April after Bithumb challenged it.

Months later, chief executive Lee Jae-won was booked as a bribery suspect over the alleged hiring of a National Assembly member's son, with police searching Bithumb's headquarters in February and June.

None of it appears in Monday's notice, which lists Bithumb's promises to customers as transparent governance, stronger internal control, better investor protection, sustainable growth and a management system built to global standards. The company said the timetable could shift with market conditions and the pace of the review it will need to clear.