Quick Breakdown
- Upbit froze deposits and withdrawals after spotting $36M in suspicious outflows from a Solana-network hot wallet.
- The incident comes as parent company Dunamu finalizes a $10.3B acquisition deal with Naver.
- Authorities have launched on-site inspections, while Upbit pledges to fully reimburse affected users.
South Korea’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, Upbit, temporarily halted deposits and withdrawals on Thursday after detecting approximately $36 million in unauthorized transfers from one of its Solana-linked hot wallets.
Suspicious activity triggers platform-wide freeze
Upbit said the irregular outflows were flagged around 4:42 am local time, prompting an immediate shutdown of all deposit and withdrawal services while it launched a full security review.
Upbit(@Official_Upbit) has been hacked — 54B KRW (~36.8M USD) in assets on #Solana have been transferred to unknown wallets.https://t.co/plbmBz2G4Nhttps://t.co/YOHoqDVfqa pic.twitter.com/DM5BxSTtXA
— Lookonchain (@lookonchain) November 27, 2025
The exchange noted that the breach affected only its hot wallet infrastructure, with cold-storage reserves remaining intact. In response, Upbit migrated remaining funds to cold wallets and initiated onchain freezing attempts to prevent further losses.
Trading remains active on the platform, but users cannot move assets in or out until the ongoing audit is complete.
Assurances to users as authorities step in
The company stressed that customers will not bear any losses from the incident and confirmed that it will reimburse all affected balances from its reserves. Upbit added that no user action is required and urged customers to remain patient while it works with regulators to complete the investigation.
Local financial authorities have already begun on-site inspections to assess the scale of the breach. Upbit has yet to provide a timeline for the resumption of normal operations.
Incident casts a shadow over Dunamu’s $10B Naver acquisition
The security scare comes at a critical moment for Upbit’s parent company, Dunamu, which recently announced a landmark $10.3 billion acquisition agreement with South Korean tech giant Naver.
Under the deal, Naver Financial will issue 87.5 million new shares in a stock-swap arrangement that will make Dunamu a wholly owned subsidiary. Following the merger, Dunamu plans to pursue a U.S. IPO as it expands its global footprint.
The companies also intend to jointly invest nearly $7 billion over five years to build a new ecosystem focused on Web3 technologies and artificial intelligence.
A reminder of Upbit’s 2019 breach
The latest incident has revived memories of Upbit’s 2019 security breach, when the exchange lost close to $50 million in an attack later attributed to North Korea’s Lazarus Group.
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