Bithumb, the initial public offering (IPO) of a South Korean cryptocurrency exchange, previously scheduled for 2027, has now been pushed back to sometime after 2028.
According to a recent report published by Maeil Business News Korea, Bithumb CFO Jeong Sang-gyun said the company had signed an “IPO advisory contract with Samjong KPMG,” adding:
We are currently preparing to strengthen accounting policies and internal controls, and as we pursue the industry’s first stock exchange listing, we are conducting a thorough internal verification.
Reason behind the delay
The company believes that this delay is not due to negligence, but a “strategic move” to “maximize business value” with ever-changing laws and regulations.
Sang-gyun is referring here to the Digital Assets Framework Law, which is expected to be approved in the second half of 2026.
In addition, there are some shareholders who expect the company to pay dividends again. This is related to the “improvements in performance”, but in turn there are no dividends for shareholders.
One shareholder even compared Bithumb to its dividend-paying competitor Dunamu. In response, CEO Lee Jae-won argued:
Last year, given the competitive market conditions, we focused our capital on increasing the company’s market share and increasing enterprise value.
Bithumb’s 2025 statistics and current market dynamics
This coincided with the company’s twelfth fiscal year financial report, which was approved on the last day of the first quarter of 2026. According to the report, the cryptocurrency exchange will have registered total assets worth 3.3249 trillion and total liabilities of almost 2.461 trillion by 2025.
Yet Bithumb did not see any discussions about an IPO flaring up in 2025.
But despite such bottlenecks, Bithumb’s trading volume at the time of writing stood at $523,156,667, after rising 10.2% in the past 24 hours.
Furthermore, according to CryptoQuant, Bithumb’s outflow graph showed that there was more Bitcoin [BTC] was dumped then withdrawn.
Simply put, there has been an increase in selling pressure, but Bitcoin’s sideways price movement indicates that bears and bulls are trying to even things out.
This followed a recent incident where the exchange was embroiled in an investigation. The investigation accidentally sent more than $40 billion worth of Bitcoin to customers.
All of this could have prompted Bithumb to reconsider its timeline for an IPO to make things work in its favor.
Final summary
- Bithumb’s delay appears to be a strategic delay and not just signs of negligence or procrastination.
- Growing shareholder dissatisfaction reflects a huge gap between company profits and investor rewards.