South Korea’s Upbit to open Singapore crypto exchange in October

Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

Kakao affiliate Dunamu, which operates South Korean cryptocurrency exchange Upbit, is gearing up to open a Singapore-based exchange in October, Yonhap News reported.

According to the South Korean news outlet, Dunamu opened a branch in Singapore in February, and now plans to launch a new crypto exchange in the country as part of its bid to tap into the Asian market.

Upbit Singapore head Kim Kook-hyun was quoted by Yonhap saying, “As Singapore has proactively supported blockchain technology, our advancement into the nation will help us secure many chances to lead a variety of relevant projects and to have global competitiveness.”

In a statement, Kim said the new exchange will support crypto-to-crypto pairs as well as integrate the services of its partner exchange, Bittrex, to its system. For enhanced security, Upbit will have 24/7 real-time security monitoring and a firewall system.

Dunamu CEO Sigroo Lee said Singapore’s strong support for blockchain was one of the reasons they chose the Asian country as its first overseas destination.

“We don’t want to lose out on the opportunities now…If we wait until the Korean crypto exchange environment improves, we could lag behind our global competitors,” Lee said in a statement. Dunamu is also looking at expanding to other countries in Southeast Asia, as well as adding more crypto-to-fiat trading pairs to its system. Upbit, however, has no plans to create its own token, according to Lee.

Upbit is not the only firm interested in tapping into Singapore’s crypto friendly ecosystem. Japanese instant messenger, Line, chose Singapore as the home of BitBox, its crypto trading that launched in July. Binance is also running a beta test of Binance Singapore its recently launched exchange. Binance will also be pairing its native token with the Singaporean dollar.

As part of its launch, Upbit Singapore is offering free trading on the SGD market for 30 days from the launch date. To qualify, users will have to complete the sign-up process, including Know-Your-Customer (KYC) process Verification level 2, by Oct. 5.