Upbit hack sparks huge premiums on Solana tokens in Korea
After the Upbit hack, Solana-based tokens affected by the incident surged several-fold against the Korean won, as arbitrage mechanisms that normally keep local and global prices aligned stopped functioning.
On November 27, after detecting unauthorized transfers of 24 Solana assets — including SOL, JUP, ORCA, and BONK — to unspecified external wallets, the South Korean exchange Upbit suspended deposits and withdrawals of digital assets and froze Solayer on-chain tokens worth about 2.3 billion KRW.
According to CryptoSlate, without active arbitrage maintaining parity between KRW-denominated pairs and dollar-based markets, local buying pressure caused sharp premiums on Solana ecosystem tokens affected by the breach.
By midday Korea time, ORCA was trading on Upbit at a 95.6% premium over global prices, while Meteora traded at an 82% premium, and Raydium at a 46% premium.
This divergence highlights how heavily Korean retail trading depends on Upbit, which handles most of the country’s digital asset volume. Prices swung rapidly throughout the day, and at certain moments tokens traded above global markets due to limited supply, and at others below due to panic selling.
Limited loss and uncertain timeline
In its statement, Upbit emphasized that the hack affected only the hot wallet used for operational liquidity, while segregated cold-wallet reserves remained untouched.
However, the exchange has not yet disclosed technical details of how the unauthorized transfer occurred, or whether the breach involved compromised private keys, infrastructure vulnerabilities, or insider access. As of publication, the investigation report had also not been released.
Although the $32 million loss ranks among the largest exchange hacks of 2025, it is far smaller than historic incidents such as Mt. Gox, the $600 million Ronin Bridge exploit, or the $1.4 billion Bybit exploit.
So far, Upbit has also not provided a timeline for restoring normal operations. The exchange stated that service resumption will depend on security verification, but offered no specific completion date.
As we wrote, Upbit eyes Nasdaq IPO after $14.5B Naver merger deal
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