Upbit to shift most user assets to cold wallets

Upbit announced it will stick to a high-security holding structure, moving most of user deposits into cold wallets. The move aims to protect the hot wallets from large-scale hacks, which the exchange has faced twice so far. 

Dunamu, the operator of the crypto exchange Upbit, announced that hot wallets will only hold a fraction of user assets. The exchange aims to increase the share of cold wallets up to 99% from the already high levels.

Over 98% of Upbit deposits are be stored in cold wallets as of December 2025 to increase security. As Cryptopolitan reported, the recent Upbit hack is still under investigation, but the exchange operator has taken additional precautions with the public user-facing wallets. 

“We are continuously striving to maintain the lowest hot wallet ratio in the domestic market,” said Oh Kyung-seok, CEO of Dunamu.

Recently, Upbit also retired the old deposit hot wallets, which were compromised after a $30M hack from multi-chain hot wallets. 

Under the Virtual Asset User Protection Act, at least 80% of assets must be stored in cold wallets. Upbit has always tried to store most of its assets in cold wallets, above and beyond that ratio. Currently, Upbit claimed other exchanges stored only around 82% to 90% in cold wallets. 

Upbit hacker retains most of the funds

More than $28M are still held in the Upbit hacker wallets. After the initial trading, most of the funds were stored as ETH, with the potential to mix and disguise. 

The hacker’s wallets are interacting with other projects, including the OKX DEX router. The wallets themselves show limited outgoing activity, with attempts to trade through the OKX router. 

Other transactions include dust transfers from general users and even from the Pump.fun wallets. 

Upbit accumulated BTC in November

Upbit still carries significant BTC reserves, with over 176K coins in reported wallets. In the past year, the reserves gradually declined from over 193K coins. 

One of the Upbit cold wallets, also known as Mr. 100, kept adding coins in November. 

The wallet has been known for accumulating coins during market dips. So far in December, there are no new inflows, but the balances increased significantly in November. 

Currently, the cold wallet holds 60,463 BTC, after adding a net 1,939 BTC in the past 30 days. The wallet is ranked 13th, holding 0.3% of the BTC supply. 

Upbit remains a key indicator for crypto activity. The exchange is one of the biggest venues for XRP trading. The exchange also offers a mix of blue-chip trading, as well as new token listings. In the past day, Upbit volumes expanded by over 49% up to $1.3B, boosted by growing ETH and XRP volumes.