After a record-breaking 2024, the company behind South Korea’s largest crypto exchange had a noticeably quieter year.
Dunamu, the Seoul-based firm that operates Upbit, which commands the dominant share of crypto trading in South Korea, filed its annual report with the country’s Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) on Monday, revealing a meaningful pullback across all its key financial metrics.
Full-year revenue came in at roughly 1.56 trillion Korean won, equivalent to about $1 billion, a 10 percent decline from the prior year. Operating profit dropped 26.7 percent to 869.3 billion won, or around $573 million, while net profit fell 27.9 percent to 708.9 billion won, about $467 million.
The company pointed to one clear culprit: fewer people trading crypto. With Upbit’s business almost entirely driven by transaction fees, trading platform operations make up roughly 97.9 percent of Dunamu’s total revenue, the exchange is essentially a direct mirror of market activity. When trading slows, so does everything else.
And trading did slow. Korea’s five major crypto exchanges, including Upbit and Bithumb, recorded a combined 24-hour trading volume of $2.39 billion at one point in early 2026, an 82 percent drop from the $13 billion recorded at the same time a year earlier.
A sharp reversal from 2024’s highs
The contrast with 2024 is striking. That year, Dunamu reported record earnings, operating profit climbed 85 percent to 1.19 trillion won, while revenue surged 70.5 percent to 1.73 trillion won. The company credited the US election outcome, Donald Trump’s pro-crypto pledges, and a broader shift in global liquidity conditions as the main drivers of that exceptional run.
2025 offered none of those tailwinds. The post-election enthusiasm faded, trading volumes across crypto markets began cooling off well before year-end,with network activity metrics like Ethereum fees pointing to softening demand.
The shareholder dividend also took a hit. Dunamu cut its payout to 5,827 won per share, down from 8,777 won the year prior, a reduction that brought the total dividend distribution from roughly 300 billion won to around 200 billion won.
Naver deal adds a layer of uncertainty
The earnings results arrive at a delicate moment for Dunamu, which is in the process of being absorbed by Naver Financial, one of South Korea’s biggest fintech platforms, in an all-stock deal originally valued at around $10.3 billion.
In a separate regulatory filing Monday, Naver Financial said it now expects to hold a shareholder vote on the deal on August 18 and close the transaction on September 30, about three months later than the original target of late May or early June. The delay was attributed to ongoing regulatory reviews, including approvals tied to changes in major shareholding and business combination rules.
Naver also flagged that South Korea’s proposed Digital Asset Basic Act, a sweeping second phase of the country’s crypto regulatory framework intended to move beyond existing user protection rules, could affect the deal’s timing or outcome once the legislation is passed. That law is expected to be introduced in the first half of 2026, adding another variable to an already complicated transaction.
For now, Dunamu’s financials tell a familiar story for exchange operators globally: when the market moves, so does the money. The company appears to still remain profitable with $467 million in net profit. But the direction of travel over 2025, combined with a pending acquisition and a regulatory environment in flux, means the road ahead is less straightforward than it looked a year ago.