Gopax, the South Korean cryptocurrency exchange majority-owned by Binance, announced on Friday, November 6, that it has suspended all user trades and transfers. The company said the temporary halt was initiated to move 100% of customer tokens under its custody into offline storage. Cold storage refers to offline wallets that cannot be breached through online exploits. The exchange stressed that it did not suffer any theft.

The precautionary move comes within a week of parent company Binance suffering a $6.3 billion exploit that the FBI has linked to North Korean operators. Notably, before Friday's transfer into cold storage, Gopax held the smallest percentage of customer assets offline among South Korea's top crypto exchanges — a sector that has become a prime target in recent attacks, alongside South Korean banks and securities firms.

Gopax suspends deposits, withdrawals and trading

According to domestic outlets Digital Asset and Etoday, Gopax stopped processing deposits and withdrawals at 2:55 p.m. local time (05:55 UTC) on November 6. By 3:53 p.m. (06:53 UTC), the exchange had halted trading and canceled all open orders.

Gopax said the temporary suspension was intended to transfer all customer funds in its custody to cold wallets for better security, and that it is acting “on the recommendation of financial authorities.”

As of press time, the exchange has not committed to a platform restart time or date. In the meantime, customers can email the support desk at help@gopax.co.kr to request their tokens, though that route is expected to be congested, as each request will be processed and approved manually. That manual step is the flip side of full cold storage: offline wallets cannot feed the automated withdrawal flows that hot wallets normally power, so each release depends on human approval.

South Korea pushes exchanges toward deeper cold storage

South Korea's Financial Services Commission (FSC) has moved into overdrive in its response to the North Korea-linked Binance hack. Among the recommendations from the emergency meetings held by the country's regulators is a proposal to lift the minimum share of coins held in cold storage from 80% to 99%. The FSC also advised exchanges to maintain round-the-clock monitoring of deposits and withdrawals and to set aside extra reserves. All of these measures remain recommendations for now; no final resolutions have been made, leaving their formalization into binding rules as the key regulatory development to watch.

FSC figures from September show that Gopax barely cleared South Korea's floor of holding 80% of assets in cold storage, with its 80.54% the lowest of the country's major won exchanges. By comparison, Upbit holds 99.17%, Bithumb sits at 94.76%, Coinone has 85%, and Digital X (formerly Korbit) is at 82.79%. At a stated 100%, Gopax's offline share would surpass both the proposed 99% floor and Upbit's September figure — reversing its position at the bottom of the table, though with trading and withdrawals frozen for the time being.

Binance holds more than a 67% stake in Gopax, which it acquired in early 2023 to bail out users stranded by the GoFi withdrawal freeze.

Korean institutions under attack

Gopax is moving against a grim backdrop. The Binance hack on October 29 saw attackers lift about $6.36 billion from hot wallets in roughly 20 minutes — the largest crypto theft on record, according to blockchain analytics firm TRM Labs. The FBI blamed North Korea's TraderTraitor group; Pyongyang has denied involvement. US authorities have tied the TraderTraitor program to a string of intrusions aimed specifically at cryptocurrency companies.

Korean firms have been hit in waves. Mirae Asset Global Investments, Bithumb and Daishin Securities all suffered breaches, and President Lee Jae Myung has asked his cabinet to study the creation of a government-wide cybersecurity agency, as Cryptopolitan reported.

Gopax itself disclosed last month that the personal data of seven customers and two current or former staff members had leaked — an intrusion that began in early September but went undetected until early October.