South Korea’s Fair Trade Commission has sanctioned Dunamu, the operator of Upbit, for falsely advertising discounted trading fees. The FTC said it would issue a cease-and-desist order for violating the Act on Fair Labeling and Advertising. Investigators found that Upbit posted notices from its launch in October 2017 through February last year, spanning more than seven years, stating that a trading fee discount event would run until further notice.
The notices claimed the standard fee for Korean won market orders was 0.139%, reduced to 0.05%. However, the investigation found the 0.139% rate was never applied to standard orders, and the actual rate had always been 0.05%. The agency described the 0.139% as a false rate that was only reviewed internally, while the 0.05% rate was not a genuine discount. It concluded the advertisements were false and exaggerated.
Despite the minor scope of the issue, the FTC imposed only a cease-and-desist order without fines, noting that just five of more than 5,000 notices contained the false claims and that the problematic notices accounted for less than 0.1% of total website visitors. The case underscores tighter oversight of crypto exchange advertising, and industry observers say it may prompt broader marketing controls across the sector.
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