Dozens of sub-won tokens remain listed on South Korean crypto exchanges

Dozens of so-called fractional-price tokens priced at less than one won each are trading on South Korean cryptocurrency exchanges, SBS Biz reported. According to the industry on Sept. 28, 39 listed tokens across South Korea’s four major crypto exchanges — Upbit, Bithumb, Coinone and Digitalx — were priced below one won as of 7:10 a.m. UTC on Sept. 24, excluding duplicates. By exchange, South Korean exchanges Bithumb and Coinone each had 26 such tokens, the most among the platforms, while Upbit and Korbit each supported trading in eight. Some had remained below one won for years since listing on domestic exchanges, while others fell under that threshold after losing more than 99% of their value. In the stock market, delisting rules for so-called penny stocks trading below 1,000 won and for companies failing to meet market capitalization requirements were tightened in July to speed the removal of troubled firms. South Korean crypto exchanges also use self-regulatory standards to monitor virtual assets that fall short of market capitalization or trading value thresholds before ending trading support, but unlike the stock market, per-token prices are not part of the monitoring criteria in the crypto market, which appears to have allowed many sub-won tokens to remain listed.