Upbit *Note that this exchange is temporarily unavailable*

Introduction to Upbit

Upbit is a Korea-based exchange that regularly sees over $1.5 billion in daily volume, making it one of the biggest exchanges in the world. It carries close to a hundred coins and tokens spread out across almost 300 different trading pairs. Upbit is the primary exchange to buy several altcoins with KRW, and has achieved a great deal of success in the three years it has been operational. Even though it suffered a large hacking incident in 2019, Upbit recovered swiftly after upgrading their security practices early the next year.

Upbit is divided into two exchanges: Upbit (Korea) and Upbit Global (rest of the world). Unfortunately, Upbit does not service customers in the United States. You will need to verify your identity before you can trade cryptocurrency on Upbit. If you want to trade KRW or SGD, you will also need to verify your residence.

How to trade on Upbit

Upbit’s trading screen is pretty basic and the exchange is geared toward spot trades, without any of the fancy derivatives, futures and margin trading options. Order types include Market, Limit, and Stop-Limit. As far as their chart options go, Upbit features a bunch of technical analysis options that aren’t regularly found at other exchanges, which makes it unique in that regard. You can also do all the usual TA overlays and customize the display with a wide arrange of options.

Trading fees

Fees are pretty straight forward on Upbit, being 0.2% for all Maker and Taker orders — unless you are trading with SGD; in which case the trading fee is 0.25% for both types of orders.

Overview of supported coins

Technically, Upbit features over 290 trading pairs, but only the top 130 of these have significant volumes. All trading pairs have one of three different bases: KRW, BTC, or USDT. For Upbit Global customers, the exchange also supports SGD as a fiat currency. There are close to 100 coins and tokens currently being traded on Upbit; those with the highest daily trading volumes include:

• XRP
• ETH
• LTC
• BCH
• ADA
• IQ
• AERGO
• LBC
• EDR
• RFR

Security

In 2019, Upbit suffered a hack in which they lost approximately $50 million in ETH, leading to concerns regarding their security practices. By early 2020, Upbit began a major upgrade of their security systems and they are now considered to be a safe exchange to use. While the hacking incident was major, it did not affect Upbit’s ability to maintain the balances of their customers.

Wrapping it up

Upbit has proven to be such a success in Korea over the years that they felt comfortable expanding to an international audience, and this has proven to be a successful endeavor as well. By keeping things simple and affordable, Upbit is a great utility for small cap or mid tier coins that aren’t readily found on exchanges with as much trading volume. Arguably, the exchange offers too many trading pairs, but altcoin traders will generally be pleased with the volume for the top 100 pairs listed by trading volume.