Bithumb aims for a 2028 IPO as South Korea tightens crypto rules
Bithumb, one of South Korea’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges, plans to go public by 2028. Before that can happen, its accounting and governance must meet the standard expected of a listed company. So must its internal controls. I’ll be honest: there is plenty to clean up.
Bithumb expects the work to take several years. The exchange is revising its governance and financial reporting while working with domestic accounting firms on risk controls. The technical centerpiece is its switch from Korean Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (K-GAAP) to Korean International Financial Reporting Standards (K-IFRS), which South Korean companies generally need to complete before listing. Compliance procedures are being overhauled as well. Why does this matter? Because an IPO application will put those controls under outside scrutiny.
The company has already reorganized parts of the business, including spinning off Bithumb Asset. Bithumb says the new structure should clarify responsibility and make room for new business lines. It should also improve liquidity before the listing. My take: the promised disclosures matter more. Bithumb has committed to regular reporting on its finances, management decisions, and cryptocurrency holdings, giving potential investors something more substantial to examine than the usual exchange talking points. The company is consulting securities firms and lawyers in South Korea and overseas. Accountants are involved too. Their work covers company valuation, legal exposure, and preparation for the preliminary listing review.
The timetable is specific. Bithumb plans to complete its first control upgrades and prepare for the K-IFRS switch in 2026. Audits and a preliminary listing application would follow in 2027; a possible IPO comes in 2028. A weak market or slow regulatory review could push those dates back. Bithumb CFO Jeong Sang-gyun repeated the 2028 target in April, and the company hired Samjong KPMG as an IPO adviser under an agreement lasting through December 2027. Most IPO announcements deserve skepticism. This one does too—but Bithumb is doing more than tossing around the idea. Coinbase (COIN) already knows how much scrutiny public ownership brings. Bithumb and any other exchange seeking a listing should expect the same treatment.
Bithumb says the IPO is meant to make management easier to scrutinize and rebuild customer trust, rather than simply fund expansion. According to the company, a simpler corporate structure should reduce conflicts of interest. It should also leave managers less room to hide poor decisions. The planned compliance and risk systems are intended to protect customer assets after the exchange goes public, while business updates and public filings would create more frequent communication. Is that ambitious? Not really. Regular disclosure should be routine for any company that holds customer funds. In crypto, sadly, it still qualifies as progress.
The plan arrives while South Korean regulators are taking a hard look at Bithumb. In June, the Personal Information Protection Commission fined the exchange 210 million won, about $136,000, for violating rules on overseas transfers of personal data. It also ordered Bithumb to fix its cross-border transfer procedures. The case covered order-book sharing from September through November 2025. Users had agreed to overseas transfers involving Stellar, yet their member numbers and order details were sent to infrastructure operated by BingX without Bithumb meeting every requirement of the Personal Information Protection Act. I wouldn’t dismiss that as prospectus boilerplate. It explains why regulators will inspect the company’s controls line by line.
That was not the largest penalty. South Korean regulators had already fined Bithumb 36.8 billion won over anti-money laundering failures in customer checks and transaction monitoring, along with transfers linked to unregistered overseas virtual asset service providers. The Personal Information Protection Commission later published blockchain privacy guidance covering on-chain disclosures and data shared between participants. It also addressed tracking risks and protections for personal information. Developers and exchanges are expected to account for those rules when building blockchain services. Binance, Kraken, and other global platforms face similar pressure in their own markets. Counter to the usual IPO narrative, going public does not prove that old failures have been fixed. Bithumb still has to demonstrate that an exchange can address them while preparing for public ownership. Suggesting that its IPO alone will alter the course of Bitcoin (BTC) or Ethereum (ETH) would be wishful thinking.
Bithumb is pursuing the listing as South Korean lawmakers draft new digital asset rules. The proposed Digital Asset Basic Act would establish a broader legal framework for cryptocurrencies. Current draft provisions may cap one shareholder’s ownership of a crypto exchange at 20%, though the limit could rise to 34% in some cases. Either figure could affect exchange ownership. It could reshape future deals too. From where I sit, those two numbers may matter as much as the 2028 target.
Traditional finance wants a piece of the market as well. Reports indicate that Hana Bank plans to buy a stake in Dunamu, the operator of Upbit, and that three Samsung affiliates may invest too. Foreign firms are placing their own bets: OKX Ventures has invested in Coinone, while Binance completed its purchase of Gopax after regulatory delays. Money is plainly moving. Safer exchanges will not necessarily follow.
What this means
Bithumb’s 2028 target puts a deadline on work that crypto exchanges have often postponed. That includes audited accounts and transparent ownership, plus controls capable of surviving outside review. A public listing would expose the company to investors demanding detailed filings. Regulators could demand answers. The “Wild West to Wall Street” line almost writes itself, but it is only half right. An IPO does not wipe away compliance failures. It records them in documents shareholders can read.
The move to K-IFRS and Bithumb’s promise of regular financial disclosures could pressure other Asian exchanges to explain how their businesses actually work. Investors may then compare reserves and liabilities with fewer blank spaces; operating results would become easier to assess as well. Regulated exchanges might look more appealing to traditional financial firms. But let’s not oversell it. Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) will not suddenly become calmer assets. Listed exchanges still operate in a market shaped by leverage and investor mood, with abrupt swings in liquidity never far away.
The next two years will tell much of the story. Bithumb expects to complete its first round of internal control work in 2026, then submit a preliminary listing application in 2027. A delay at either stage would threaten the 2028 target. The final text of the Digital Asset Basic Act matters too, particularly any ownership limits that force Bithumb to change its structure or affect how investors value it. I see that as the less glamorous risk—and possibly the decisive one.
Other exchanges will be watching. If Bithumb completes the audits and satisfies regulators, then reaches the public market, competitors may try to follow. If weak controls or unresolved enforcement cases derail the process, the warning will spread just as fast. Does the timetable make the IPO likely? No. It makes progress measurable. For now, the IPO remains a plan with a timetable, and most of the difficult work comes long before anyone rings the opening bell.