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Binance-controlled GOPAX halts trading and deposits after emailed hacking threat

The South Korean exchange says no hack or theft attempt has occurred. Withdrawals now go through support by hand, and GOPAX has given no date to restart. Its notices do not mention Binance's own exchange.

November 6, 2026 · Effective · Verified 2026-11-08 via official announcement

GOPAX, a South Korean exchange in which Binance holds a majority stake, stopped crypto deposits and app and web withdrawals at 14:55 Korea time (05:55 UTC) on 6 November 2026. It suspended trading at 15:53 (06:53 UTC) and cancelled all open orders. A company official told Yonhap Infomax and Kyunghyang Shinmun that it had received an email from people claiming to be hackers, and that no actual hack or theft attempt had occurred.

GOPAX's own notices do not mention the email. They call this a precaution following recent data leaks and hacks at financial firms, taken on regulators' recommendation, and say all crypto will move to offline cold wallets. Customers can request withdrawals through its support centre; these are handled by hand after internal checks and may take longer than usual. Neither notice gives a restart date, and GOPAX's notice list still showed no reopening when DexSheet checked on 8 November.

The move came days after South Korea's Financial Services Commission urged exchanges to hold more crypto in cold storage following the 29 October Binance hack, Cointelegraph reports. Korean exchanges must keep at least 80% of customer crypto offline, and regulator data showed GOPAX at 80.54% at the end of September. GOPAX had also posted notices in October about abnormal access to some customer accounts and a personal data leak. Upbit, Bithumb, Coinone and DigitalX warned users about sending funds to GOPAX, Yonhap Infomax reports.

On 8 November a senior South Korean financial regulator told Seoul Economic Daily that GOPAX is believed to have received about two threatening emails and reported them to the authorities before suspending services. GOPAX is the only one of the country's five major exchanges without ISMS-P information security certification, the paper reports, and the Financial Supervisory Service plans to meet exchanges' and custody firms' chief information security officers on 19 November about hacking incidents.

South Korea's Financial Intelligence Unit approved Binance's majority stake in October 2025. Reports of its size differ, with The Deep Dive putting it at roughly 67%. The Deep Dive says no evidence links the email to GOPAX's earlier data leak or to the Binance theft. DexSheet found no Binance statement on the halt.

“이용자 자산의 안전한 보관을 위해 가상자산 전량을 콜드월렛(Cold Wallet)으로 이전하여 보관할 예정입니다.”

— GOPAX notice, 6 November 2026 (says all crypto will move to cold wallets to protect customer assets)

Who this affects

GOPAX customers, and anyone sending funds to GOPAX from other Korean exchanges. GOPAX's notices do not cover Binance's own exchange.

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