Upbit, operated by Dunamu, recorded roughly $1.04 billion in spot trading volume over 24 hours, exceeding the combined turnover of South Korea’s three closest domestic rivals. Bithumb posted about $632.6 million, Coinone $67.9 million and Korbit, now called Digital X, nearly $11 million. The rebound followed Bitcoin’s move above $80,000 in late August, its first such rise since mid-May, which brought Korean retail money back to local exchanges. Upbit’s daily turnover briefly reached 4.61 trillion won by Saturday afternoon, compared with a previous range of 300 billion to 600 billion won, while Bithumb surpassed 2 trillion won. A separate Cryptopolitan report put Upbit’s one-day volume increase at 273%, to about $1.84 billion, its busiest session since mid-March, with XRP the most-traded token on both exchanges. The renewed activity follows a weak first half of 2026, when Korea’s four largest exchanges lost nearly 500 billion won ($364 million) combined as falling prices reduced asset values and low trading activity cut fee income. Trading fees accounted for 96.91% of Dunamu’s first-half revenue, which fell by half from a year earlier; Dunamu’s operating profit dropped 79.7% year-on-year and Bithumb’s declined 83.4%. Total first-half trading across Korean exchanges fell 54.6% from the previous year to $366.58 billion as capital moved into record-high Korean stocks, including shares of Samsung and SK Hynix. Smaller venues are now using fee waivers to attract traders. Coinone removed fees on all listed coins until further notice, while Digital X introduced zero-fee trading through August 2027. Digital X’s average hourly volume rose 36-fold, from 270 million won to 9.8 billion won, although 87% of the increase came from one stablecoin, RLUSD, distributed to large traders during a special event. Coinone’s hourly volume tripled to 8.2 billion won before returning to normal levels. Bithumb’s previous 68-day fee-free campaign temporarily lifted volume but failed to push its market share above 30%; it repeated the strategy for seven days in February. Upbit and Bithumb have so far waived fees only on selected tokens, including Upbit’s removal of charges for stablecoins such as Tether (USDT-USD) from July 26. Digital X’s parent, Mirae Asset Financial Group, is also negotiating to buy Korbit for up to 140 billion won ($97.5 million).