Upbit canceled its HEMI listing minutes before trading after a breach of a legacy rewards contract, a first for the exchange, with 124.5 million unclaimed tokens drained. Rival Bithumb, which already listed HEMI, flagged the token as an investment caution item and will decide on trading support next month.
Upbit pulled its HEMI listing 18 minutes before trading opened after an exploit drained 124.5 million unclaimed tokens from a legacy contract, the first time the South Korean exchange withdrew support it had already announced.
"We conduct continuous monitoring even after announcing trading support and up until the actual start of trading, and it was during this process that we identified a serious security issue affecting the project," an Upbit official said. "We decided to cancel trading support to prevent investor harm."
Upbit had said on Sept. 8 at 7:25 p.m. KST it would list HEMI on BTC and USDT markets, with trading scheduled for 9:30 p.m. the next day. The exchange pulled the listing at 9:12 p.m. after receiving a tip that the contract used to distribute early contributor rewards had been exploited, allowing abnormal token outflows and unauthorized liquidation of assets. The drain hit a legacy contract holding unclaimed rewards rather than the Hemi network's core Layer 2 infrastructure, which launched mainnet in March 2025 and was co-founded by former Bitcoin Core developer Jeff Garzik.
Bithumb, which had already listed HEMI, designated the token an investment caution item on Sept. 9 at 11:50 a.m. and will decide in the second week of next month whether to end trading support, weighing how the project addressed the vulnerability and handled losses. The episode landed the same day Upbit added Cluster Protocol's CP and Solana meme token USELESS, and it sharpens scrutiny of legacy contracts across exchanges and token issuers as Korean retail volume concentrates on the two dominant venues.
For HEMI holders on Bithumb, the outcome hinges on the project's response to the breach, with trading support termination a live possibility if remediation falls short of exchange standards. Upbit said it will strengthen project verification and ongoing monitoring, extending listing reviews past the announcement date. The divergent fates of the three tokens — HEMI suspended, CP and USELESS live with KRW, BTC and USDT pairs — show how quickly exchange decisions can shift liquidity in a market where Korean retail drives a large share of global volume.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.
