South Korea’s leading cryptocurrency exchange Upbit announced on August 7 that it will terminate market support for BONK, the Solana-based meme coin. Trading in the BONK/KRW and BONK/USDT pairs will cease at 15:00 KST on September 7, 2026. All open orders on those pairs will be canceled at that time.

Withdrawals of BONK will remain available until October 7, 2026. After the withdrawal window closes, deposits sent to Upbit addresses will not be credited, and the exchange will no longer support airdrops, wallet upgrades or hard forks related to the token. Upbit warned that recovery of misdirected transfers after the deadline could take a prolonged period.

The decision follows a formal review that began on July 7, when Upbit designated BONK a cautionary trading asset and halted deposits. The exchange concluded that previously identified concerns around security incidents and timely disclosure of material information remained unresolved.

Background: The July Governance Attack

The review was triggered by a July 6-7 incident in which an attacker drained roughly $20 million from the BonkDAO treasury. The attacker acquired just over 1 percent of the total supply at a cost of about $4.4 million and pushed through a malicious governance proposal known as BIP #76. Voter turnout on the proposal stood near 2.9 percent, allowing it to pass without any code-level exploit of the smart contracts.

BonkDAO disclosed the incident, notified law enforcement and stated it was working to recover funds and identify those responsible. No recovery has been confirmed publicly. Upbit’s delisting notice does not explicitly name the treasury attack as the cause, in contrast to language used in some earlier delisting cases.

Price Reaction and Market Context

The delisting announcement triggered immediate selling. BONK fell between 7 percent and 10 percent in the hours after the news, reaching an intraday low of $0.00000255—its lowest level since November 2023. At the time of the reports the token traded near $0.00000253 to $0.00000264, with 24-hour trading volume rising more than 200 percent as holders exited positions.

Over the preceding month BONK had already declined approximately 30.5 percent, underperforming other large-cap meme coins such as Dogecoin and Shiba Inu, which recorded only single-digit percentage losses over the same period. The token has remained in a broader downtrend since May, trading below key moving averages and technical support levels.

Market capitalization stood near $223.5 million, with circulating supply of roughly 88 trillion tokens. The removal of Upbit’s order books eliminates access to one of South Korea’s deepest retail liquidity pools for the asset.

Impact on Holders and Contrasting Exchange Actions

Holders with balances on Upbit face clear deadlines to withdraw tokens before October 7. Liquidity is expected to tighten once the pairs are removed, and price volatility may increase as Korean market participants shift funds to other venues. BONK continues to trade on international platforms including OKX.

In a contrasting move, fellow South Korean exchange Bithumb removed BONK from its own delisting watchlist, stating that the token now meets its compliance and stability criteria. The divergent decisions leave BONK’s access to the Korean market divided between the two major platforms.

BONK launched on December 25, 2022, as a community-focused Solana meme coin. Developers distributed half of the 100 trillion token supply through airdrops to NFT holders, artists and active wallets, with no early venture capital allocation. The project later expanded into DeFi integrations, a fee-based burn mechanism, a launchpad and governance through BonkDAO.

The episode underscores the risks associated with low participation in open governance systems. Whether other Korean exchanges follow Upbit’s decision or maintain listings in line with Bithumb remains an open question for the coming weeks.