Upbit, South Korea's largest crypto exchange, ran notices on its homepage promoting a discount event: the standard trading fee of 0.139% temporarily cut to 0.05%. The problem, the Fair Trade Commission found, was that 0.139% had never been charged — it was an internally reviewed figure that was never applied to general orders. And 0.05% was not a discount at all: it had been the exchange's standard fee continuously since Upbit opened in October 2017. The 'event' advertised a cut from a price that did not exist to the price everyone had always paid.
On 25 March 2026 the KFTC sanctioned Dunamu under the Fair Labeling and Advertising Act — the first time it had acted against a virtual-asset exchange over false fee advertising. The sanction was a corrective order with no surcharge: only five homepage notices were found false, and their exposure was under 0.1% of site traffic. Dunamu argued there was no intent to deceive — the wording began as a launch promotion, was kept for the customers' benefit, and the outdated 'discount' label was simply not noticed — and corrected the displays at once.
The KFTC's point stood regardless: fees are a decisive criterion when users choose an exchange, and presenting a never-applied rate as the standard price to advertise a discount from makes an exchange look cheaper than it is. That distortion hinders rational choice and undermines fair competition between exchanges — the reason the first-of-its-kind case was brought at all.
The KFTC issued a corrective order, the first against an exchange for false fee ads, because the anchor price was invented and the discount was the normal rate.
The anchor price was invented: 0.139% was never charged to general orders — it only ever existed as an internally reviewed figure.
The 'discounted' price was the normal one: 0.05% had been Upbit's standard fee since it opened in October 2017.
A leftover launch label can become a false ad: the 'discount' wording persisted long after it stopped describing anything real.
A discount must be measured against a real former price: Upbit advertised fees 'cut from 0.139%' that never existed, and the KFTC sanctioned Dunamu in the first such case against an exchange.
The KFTC's corrective order of 25 March 2026 required Dunamu to stop the false fee-discount advertising; no surcharge was imposed given the five notices' low exposure. Dunamu corrected the displays and pledged stronger internal review. The case marked the first KFTC sanction of a virtual-asset exchange for false advertising about fees.
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