Upbit delists BONK on Monday, September 7, 2026, ending support for the meme coin after unresolved security and disclosure concerns.
Upbit, one of two major South Korean exchanges, will remove BONK/KRW and BONK/USDT pairs at 3 p.m. KST.
All outstanding orders will be cancelled when trading ends. Customers may withdraw their BONK holdings until October 7.
Bithumb removed its warning on August 7 after deciding the underlying problems had been addressed. Upbit said the grounds for its caution designation “have not been resolved.”
Korean cryptocurrency markets influence activity beyond individual platforms. The OECD Asia Capital Markets Report 2026 highlighted Korea’s importance. It said Korea and India recorded Asia’s largest absolute crypto asset inflows during the 12 months through June 2025.
Upbit and Bithumb Reach Different BONK Decisions
Upbit and Bithumb placed BONK under “trading caution” on July 7. Bithumb linked the designation to a security incident with an unknown or unresolved cause. It also cited concerns about timely disclosure of important information.
Bithumb lifted the designation one month later and resumed deposits that day. Upbit instead moved toward ending trading support under its market alert framework.
That process allows an exchange to remove a caution notice when identified concerns are addressed. It may terminate trading support when those issues remain unresolved.
BonkDAO Attack Raises Governance Concerns
The incident affected BonkDAO, a community-managed treasury serving the BONK ecosystem. BONK stated on X that “$BONK and BonkDAO are two distinct entities.” It said the attack did not affect other BONK operations.
Blockchain security company Halborn estimated that BonkDAO lost $20 million. Its investigation found that the attacker used a malicious governance proposal to move 4.43 trillion BONK from the treasury.
The attacker reportedly spent about $4.4 million to secure majority voting power. The proposal received roughly 99.878% of votes and executed without a time lock.
BonkDAO is separate from the wider token ecosystem. Exchanges may still examine remediation, disclosure, and investor protections when reviewing an asset.
BONK Price and Volume Rise Before Delisting
DAXA’s Best Practices for Listing Virtual Assets establishes shared minimum standards for Upbit and Bithumb while preserving exchange discretion. Reviews cover issuer reliability, safeguards, investor protection, and regulatory compliance.
The framework examines unresolved hacking incidents and failures to disclose information material to investors or an asset’s value. Different assessments of BONK’s response therefore produced opposite outcomes from the exchanges.
CoinMarketCap data placed BONK near $0.00000345, up about 6.1% over 24 hours. Trading volume reached approximately $134 million, while market capitalization stood near $303 million.
A September 6 BONK price prediction recorded a 4.3% increase and trading volume near $104.6 million.
BONK remains available through major international exchanges and Solana-based decentralized markets after Upbit’s removal. Trading continues on other platforms.
