The Seoul Administrative Court's Second Administrative Division accepted Bithumb's injunction request, freezing the suspension order issued in March by the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), a body under the Financial Services Commission (FSC) responsible for anti-money laundering (AML) oversight. The exchange can continue full operations while the underlying lawsuit works through the courts. "The sanction will remain suspended until the court rules on the merits of the case," Bloomingbit reported in its summary of the court order.

The original FIU penalty, announced in March 2026, was the stiffest ever handed to a domestic crypto exchange in South Korea. Regulators fined Bithumb 36.8 billion won (roughly $26.6 million USD) and ordered a six-month restriction barring new customers from making external virtual asset deposits and withdrawals. Existing users were not affected by the suspension terms. The FIU cited approximately 6.65 million violations of the Act on Reporting and Using Specified Financial Transaction Information (South Korea's financial transaction reporting law), broken into two categories: 3.55 million failures to complete required customer identity verification (KYC) and 3.04 million failures to block transactions with unregistered overseas crypto service providers. The exchange's CEO received a formal reprimand, and its reporting officer faced a separate six-month suspension.

Bithumb moved quickly to contest the decision. The company filed an administrative lawsuit and sought an emergency injunction on March 23, four days before the suspension was scheduled to take effect on March 27. A spokesperson told the Korea Herald the company intends to "faithfully present our position throughout the remaining legal proceedings."

The court's decision follows a closely watched ruling three weeks earlier that is now shaping the broader legal landscape. On April 9, the Seoul Administrative Court permanently canceled a separate three-month suspension imposed on Dunamu, the operator of market-leading exchange Upbit, over more than 8.6 million KYC violations. In that case, the court found that while clear compliance rules existed for transactions above 1 million won (approximately $675), the FIU had not published sufficiently specific guidance for smaller transfers. The court concluded that operators' self-initiated compliance efforts must be weighed in cases where regulatory standards are genuinely ambiguous, and that the FIU could not treat the exchange's conduct as negligent without first establishing detailed requirements. That reasoning applies directly to Bithumb's situation and is seen by legal observers as the foundation that made the injunction request viable.

Bithumb's market position gives the case practical weight. The exchange holds roughly 25% of the South Korean crypto market, listed 448 assets as of early 2026, and recorded 83.93 trillion KRW in trading volume during Q1 2026. That figure was itself down 31.3% from Q4 2025's 121.89 trillion KRW, a decline that tracks a broader market slowdown across all five major Korean won-denominated exchanges, which together saw volume fall 20% quarter-over-quarter to 318.3 trillion KRW in Q1 2026.

Bithumb is not alone in mounting a legal challenge. Coinone, which received its own FIU fine of approximately $3.5 million in April 2026, has filed a separate lawsuit against the regulator, adding to a parallel pattern of exchanges contesting the enforcement wave through the courts rather than accepting penalties outright.

The implications extend well beyond South Korea. The FIU's mass inspection campaign, which targeted all five major won-based exchanges between 2024 and 2025, was partly driven by preparation for a Financial Action Task Force (FATF) mutual evaluation scheduled for 2028. The FATF is the global standard-setter for AML rules, and courts and regulators in markets including Pakistan, which remains on the FATF grey list, and Nigeria, which was removed in 2023 but still faces scrutiny, are watching how Korea's enforcement model holds up in court. Those markets are building their own crypto AML frameworks, and the Seoul court's principle that ambiguous rules cannot serve as the basis for sanctions is a precedent their own exchanges may eventually invoke.

South Korea also lost roughly 160 trillion KRW (about $110 billion USD) in crypto outflows in 2025, much of it flowing to offshore platforms including Binance and Bybit. That figure underlines a risk that aggressive domestic enforcement can produce the opposite of its intended effect, pushing volume toward less-regulated venues rather than strengthening compliance at home.

The next milestone is the court's ruling on the full merits of Bithumb's lawsuit. The Dunamu precedent and the injunction grant together represent a development that significantly complicates the FIU's position as the case proceeds.