The colder the market, the more new coins are listed: 61 new coins contribute a quarter of the revenue, raising questions about Upbit's strategic value.

Written by: @r2Jamong

Translated by: AididiaoJP, Foresight News

As we enter the second half of 2026, Upbit's pace of listing new coins has suddenly accelerated. After thoroughly summarizing the new coin listing data on Upbit this year using Surf AI, we found that since June, the speed of new coin listings has significantly increased. Meanwhile, the entire Korean won market has been cooling rapidly: the monthly trading volume of Upbit’s Korean won trading pairs has dropped from 72.7 trillion won in January to 27.1 trillion won in July, a decrease of 63%. The price of Bitcoin has also fallen from around 118 million won at the beginning of the year to the 90 million won range. The colder the market gets, the more frequently Upbit lists new coins—this is in stark contrast to the usual logic of "actively listing coins only when the market is good."

Listing new coins has almost become Upbit’s last line of defense to actively drive trading volume in a bear market.

As of August, 61 types of coins have opened Korean won trading pairs on Upbit this year. These new coins contribute a total trading volume of 3 trillion to 8 trillion won each month. Although the total trading volume in the entire market has shrunk to one-third of the level at the beginning of the year, the trading volume from new coins listed this year has steadily increased from the low level at the start of the year. As a result, the proportion of trading volume from new coins has risen from just 5% in January to 27.6% in August. Since Upbit implements a unified fee rate for the Korean won market, this means that nearly a quarter of the fee income now directly comes from these new coins that have only been listed this year.

From the performance of individual coins, newly listed coins contribute an average of 1.2% to the total market trading volume within 30 days of being listed. Projects with standout performance can even capture 4%–5% of the share: CHIP reached 4.8%, RE was 4.0%, and SLX was 3.8%. CAP, which was just listed in August, recorded a 4.5% share in the first 16 days, and continues to contribute. In stark contrast are stablecoins—USDS, RLUSD, and USDG have a trading share consistently below 0.1%. Even when newly listed, they hardly bring any incremental volume.

In other words, during periods of market downturn, newly listed coins have almost become Upbit's only controllable trading leverage. However, this leverage has not enlarged the overall market size nor genuinely activated market sentiment. It has only increased the share of new coins within an sharply shrinking total market.

For a long time, Korean digital asset exchanges represented by Upbit and Bithumb have been viewed as the only important channel for global exposure to the Korean won, possessing extremely high strategic value. The act of listing coins itself often brings significant "Upbit premium," becoming a scarce resource fiercely competed for by project initiators. However, this year's situation is changing—listing coins is increasingly being seen not as an event to create new demand and attract incremental funds but rather as a tool to defend against shrinking trading volumes and stabilize fee income.

The premium from listing coins is still effective today, indicating that there are still real buyers in this market. But the more frequently the leverage is pulled, the fewer other available tools remain. The premium is inherently based on scarcity, and now it is being consumed little by little to barely maintain trading volumes during a bear market. When the next market warm-up truly occurs, whether the strategic value of Korean won liquidity can be fully retained and whether it will be diluted due to frequent coin listings remains an unresolved question.

For the entire centralized exchange landscape in Asia, Upbit's choice may just be a microcosm: when both macro liquidity and market sentiment weaken, exchanges are forced to rely on this short-term tool of "listing coins" to maintain a basic volume. But once scarcity is over-consumed, the foundation for long-term competitiveness may also be loosened.