Bithumb's 2028 IPO Plan: From $43B Ghost Bitcoin Blunder to Belt-and-Suspenders Governance 🪞

Bithumb, South Korea's second-largest crypto exchange, has published a formal three-stage roadmap targeting a 2028 initial public offering, telling customers on August 3, 2026, that it will complete upgraded internal controls in 2026, file for a preliminary listing review in 2027, and reach a full listing in 2028. The exchange competes domestically with Dunamu-operated Upbit and said the timetable could shift depending on market and regulatory conditions.

The notice is built around trust, governance and accounting rigor. Bithumb said it is rebuilding risk management to the standard required of regulated financial firms, migrating from Korean Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (K-GAAP) to Korean International Financial Reporting Standards (K-IFRS), and strengthening compliance monitoring to institutional-finance levels. It has carved out Bithumb Asset to separate business lines and remove conflicts of interest, engaged domestic and overseas underwriters, law firms and accountants, and committed to regular disclosure of its finances and its own crypto holdings.

The roadmap follows a turbulent year. In February 2026, a promotional error sent 620,000 Bitcoin, worth roughly $43 billion, to 249 users who were owed just 620,000 Korean won in BTC, briefly crashing local $BTC trading by around 17%. Bithumb recovered 99.7% of the phantom balances, covered a 1,788 BTC shortfall from corporate reserves, and established a ₩100 billion ($68 million) Customer Protection Fund for affected traders. Financial regulators fined the exchange $24.5 million in March and ordered a six-month partial suspension over anti-money laundering and know-your-customer failures; a court blocked that order in April after Bithumb challenged it. The exchange has since filed provisional seizure orders to recover 7 BTC worth $496,000 from recipients who refused to return the mistaken distribution, according to local outlet Chosun.

Bithumb is also navigating an executive-level investigation. Police booked chief executive Lee Jae-won as a bribery suspect, alleging he hired the second son of independent National Assembly member Kim Byung-ki, who served on the Political Affairs Committee overseeing financial regulation, after a November 2024 restaurant meeting in Seoul's Mapo district; the suspect's son reportedly joined Bithumb in January 2025. Police searched Bithumb's headquarters in February and June.

The 2028 target collides with a major tax milestone: South Korea's 22% crypto gains tax takes effect on January 1, 2027. Bithumb's notice frames the listing push as a way to lock in investor protections, transparent governance and internal controls built to global standards, regardless of how the surrounding legal and regulatory questions resolve in the meantime.