{"id":71966,"date":"2026-05-02T22:57:50","date_gmt":"2026-05-02T22:57:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crowdfundjunction.com\/blog\/seoul-court-rescues-bithumb-from-record-6-month-suspension\/"},"modified":"2026-05-02T22:57:50","modified_gmt":"2026-05-02T22:57:50","slug":"seoul-court-rescues-bithumb-from-record-6-month-suspension","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crowdfundjunction.com\/blog\/seoul-court-rescues-bithumb-from-record-6-month-suspension\/","title":{"rendered":"Seoul Court Rescues Bithumb from Record 6-Month Suspension"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><b>(Originally posted on : Bitcoin News )<\/b><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p><strong>Key Takeaways:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight:400\">Seoul\u2019s court halted Bithumb\u2019s 6-month FIU suspension on April 30, allowing the exchange to continue full operations. <\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight:400\">The FIU fined Bithumb 36.8 billion won ($24.6M) for 6.65 million AML and KYC violations in March 2026. <\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight:400\">Upbit, Coinone, and Korbit face similar FIU sanctions, with Coinone\u2019s first court hearing set for May 12.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><span style=\"font-weight:400\">Court Steps In as Bithumb Fights Record Penalty<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:400\">On April 30, 2026, Judge Gong Hyeon-jin of the Seoul Administrative Court <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.koreaherald.com\/article\/10729598\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight:400\">accepted Bithumb\u2019s request<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight:400\"> for a stay of execution, temporarily blocking a six-month partial business suspension that South Korea\u2019s Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) \u2013 an anti-money laundering (AML) body under the Financial Services Commission \u2013 had imposed in March. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:400\">The FIU also levied a 36.8 billion won ($24.6 million) fine against the exchange for approximately 6.65 million compliance violations.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:400\">The violations fell into two categories. One pertained to roughly 3.55 million cases of failed customer identity verification, and the other to 3.04 million instances where Bithumb failed to block transactions with unregistered virtual asset operators. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:400\">The six-month suspension, described as the harshest sanction ever handed to a Korean won-based <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bitcoin.com\/get-started\/a-quick-introduction-to-crypto\/\" class=\"lar_link lar_link_outgoing\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">crypto<\/a> exchange, would have barred new customers from transferring external virtual assets on the platform, with Bithumb warning during an April 23 hearing that the measure would block new customer acquisition and damage operations, particularly if South Korea\u2019s institutional investor market opens.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:400\">Bithumb filed an administrative lawsuit and sought an injunction on March 23, days before the suspension was due to take effect on March 27. Thursday\u2019s ruling keeps the exchange fully operational while proceedings continue. The company stated it plans to \u201cfaithfully present our position throughout the remaining legal proceedings.\u201d Notably, Bithumb has not yet paid its fine, despite the FIU offering a 20% discount for timely settlement more than four weeks ago.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"font-weight:400\">A Pattern of Legal Challenges Across Korean Exchanges<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:400\">Bithumb is not fighting alone as the ruling closely follows a favorable first-instance judgment for Upbit operator Dunamu on April 9, a case where the court noted exchanges\u2019 self-initiated compliance efforts in the absence of clear regulatory guidelines. The FIU has since appealed that decision.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:400\">Coinone <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/news.bitcoin.com\/south-korea-fines-coinone-3-5m-suspends-new-user-services-for-3-months-over-aml-violations\/\"><span style=\"font-weight:400\">faces a 5.2 billion won fine<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight:400\"> and a partial suspension for Know Your Customer (KYC) violations, with its first court hearing scheduled for May 12. Of the four major won-based exchanges targeted by the FIU\u2019s enforcement wave (Upbit, Bithumb, Coinone, and Korbit), only Korbit has not filed a legal challenge.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:400\">This string of court stays is exposing deeper questions about the legal foundation of the FIU\u2019s sanctions framework. Courts have consistently factored in whether exchanges made self-directed compliance efforts despite the absence of clear regulatory guidance, a standard the FIU\u2019s penalty calculations do not appear to have accounted for.<\/span><\/p>\n<p> <!-- --> <\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:400\">The regulator argued during the Bithumb hearing that the suspension would affect only part of trading activities with limited revenue impact. The court remained unconvinced.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/news.bitcoin.com\/bithumb-seoul-court-halts-six-month-suspension\/\">Source link <\/a><br \/>\n<br \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(Originally posted on : Bitcoin News ) Key Takeaways: Seoul\u2019s court halted Bithumb\u2019s 6-month FIU suspension on April 30, allowing the exchange to continue full operations. The FIU fined Bithumb 36.8 billion won ($24.6M) for 6.65 million AML and KYC violations in March 2026. Upbit, Coinone, and Korbit face similar FIU sanctions, with Coinone\u2019s first [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3947362404,"featured_media":71967,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[32],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crowdfundjunction.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71966"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crowdfundjunction.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crowdfundjunction.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crowdfundjunction.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3947362404"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crowdfundjunction.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71966"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/crowdfundjunction.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71966\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crowdfundjunction.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71967"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crowdfundjunction.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crowdfundjunction.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crowdfundjunction.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}