South Korean Exchanges Delisted 430 Altcoins Excluding Bitcoin (BTC) Since 2022

1,236 Listings, 430 Delistings

South Korea's five largest won-denominated crypto exchanges have listed 1,236 altcoins since 2022 while ending trading support for 430 of them, according to records compiled by the office of People Power Party lawmaker Park Sung-hoon, a member of the National Assembly's Political Affairs Committee. The data was submitted by Upbit, Bithumb, Coinone, Korbit and Gopax and covers new listings from 2022 through late July 2026, with Bithumb's tally extending to August 18. Altcoins — every digital asset except Bitcoin (BTC) — entered Korean markets at a pace now back under scrutiny, because more than a third of everything listed over the window was eventually removed. A delisting in the Korean framework means an exchange halts buy and sell support for an asset, an outcome functionally similar to a stock being taken off an exchange. The 430 figure also includes coins listed before 2022 that were removed during the review period. Holders of a removed asset are left with shrinking liquidity and wider price swings, which is precisely the investor-harm risk lawmakers want addressed. Retail access broadens with each new listing, but the same speed that feeds trading volume also waves weak projects through the door. The contrast with traditional markets is stark: over the same span, the KOSDAQ market added 532 new companies while delisting just 76, mostly for audit-opinion shortfalls. Broken down per venue, Bithumb listed 426 and dropped 134, a 31.5% removal ratio; Coinone listed 337 and dropped 157, or 46.6%; Upbit listed 219 and dropped 42 — the lowest ratio at 19.2%; Korbit listed 148 and dropped 30, or 20.3%; and Gopax listed 106 while dropping 67, the heaviest churn at 63.2%.

Fee Wars and One-Year Failures

The granularity of the disclosure is what stings. Thirty-eight altcoins did not survive even a year after listing: Bithumb accounted for 16, Coinone 11, Gopax 5, Korbit 4 and Upbit 2 — evidence, critics argue, that screening failed to catch problems visible within months. Upbit's stated grounds for its 42 removals were led by user harm at 28 cases, followed by technical and security issues at 8, legal violations and issuer-reliability concerns at 2 each, and 2 classified as other. Beyond lost liquidity, a delisted token typically loses exchange-run services such as staking support, compounding the hit to holders. The filing also documents the trading-incentive arms race running alongside the loose listings. Korbit waived fees on all trading pairs for 133 days between October 2023 and February 2024; average daily volume reached 70.66 billion won, a 1,520.8% surge over the prior comparable period. Once the event ended, that figure collapsed 57.4% to 30.1 billion won — flow rented, not retained. Korbit and Coinone have both rolled out fresh zero-fee campaigns recently, repeating the pattern. The political temperature is rising with the numbers. Mirae Asset Group chairman Park Hyun-ju, meeting Korbit staff on August 26, said exchanges that listed 200 to 300 altcoins while 80-90% of customers bought the top were, in his words, committing “a criminal act.” Park Sung-hoon called the pattern a “bomb-passing” game in which exchanges fill their own coffers while investors absorb the losses. The Financial Services Commission took up revised trading-support best practices at its fourth virtual asset committee session last year, and DAXA, the exchanges' joint council, has published self-regulatory standards. Readers tracking the market in real time can follow live spot and futures prices on Binance.

Vetting Standards in Focus

Our reading is that Korea's listing churn is a case study in what happens when listing pipelines scale faster than due diligence. Churn of this shape clusters around late-stage bull market conditions, when exchanges compete aggressively for retail flow and sentiment gauges like the crypto fear and greed index run hot, pulling capital that might otherwise sit in stablecoin pairs into thin, volatile listings. The unresolved question is consistency — whether listing review and delisting criteria get applied as uniformly as the rules now governing small-cap equities in Seoul. Readers weighing venues can consult our guide to the best crypto exchanges for how major platforms handle token vetting and delisting notices.