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Upbit halts transactions after hacking of $30M in assets detected

Published: 27 Nov. 2025, 15:59

The photo shows Naver’s headquarters in Seongnam, Gyeonggi, on Nov. 27. [YONHAP]

Korea’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, Upbit, said on Thursday it halted deposits and withdrawals after detecting an unauthorized transfer of Solana-based assets worth about 44.5 billion won ($30.4 million) from its internal systems.

The breach was reported mere hours after its operator, Dunamu, sealed a merger deal with Naver’s fintech arm.

Dunamu CEO Oh Kyung-seok said in a customer notice that the company detected the transfer at around 4:42 a.m. and identified 24 Solana-network tokens as affected, including Bonk BONK, Jupiter, Raydium, Pyth Network, Render Token, Solana and USD Coin.

Solana-network tokens refer to cryptocurrencies issued on the Solana blockchain.

Oh said the company had confirmed that the assets moved to a wallet address not designated internally.

He said Dunamu had assessed the scale of the losses “immediately” and would use Upbit’s own holdings to ensure “no damage occurs to customer assets.”

The company initially put the scale of the hack at 54 billion won but revised the figure to 44.5 billion won around 3 p.m.

The exchange said it suspended all deposits and withdrawals and moved remaining holdings into cold wallets to prevent further unauthorized transactions.

It reported the incident to the Korea Internet and Security Agency and the Financial Supervisory Service.

Lee Hae-jin, center, chairman of Naver’s board, speaks during a joint press conference held by Naver, Naver Financial and Dunamu at Naver's office in Seongnam, Gyeonggi, on Nov. 27. [NAVER]

The breach came as Naver Financial and Dunamu formalized a share-swap deal that will make Dunamu a wholly owned subsidiary of Naver Financial. Naver’s board approved the plan on Wednesday, and both companies endorsed it at their own board meetings.

Naver founder and chairman Lee Hae-jin reportedly attended the session to explain the merger plan.

According to a regulatory filing, Naver Financial will acquire 100 percent of Dunamu through an exchange ratio of 2.54 Naver Financial shares for each Dunamu share. The companies valued Dunamu at 439,252 won per share and Naver Financial at 172,780 won.

The firms held a joint press briefing on Thursday at Naver’s headquarters to outline plans to expand globally with products based on AI and Web3 technologies. The security incident overshadowed the event.

This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
BY CHO MUN-GYU [[email protected]]