On March 30, 2026, Dunamu announced its annual performance for 2025. This report from the largest cryptocurrency exchange operator in South Korea quickly became another core footnote in the narrative of this bear market. The financial report showed that the company's operating revenue was 15.6 trillion won, a year-on-year decline of 10.0%, while operating profit fell 26.7% to 869.3 billion won, and net profit dropped 27.9% to 708.9 billion won. Revenue and profit declined simultaneously but exhibited a pressure curve of "asymmetric declines." Against the backdrop of a roughly 40% retracement of the total global cryptocurrency market value from its 2024 peak, the traditional "matching transactions + charging fees per transaction" exchange model is once again being questioned: when market value shrinks and transactions cool, how long can a business structure that excessively relies on trading fees last?

A stark contrast of a 10% revenue drop and nearly 30% profit drop

On the surface, Dunamu's 15.6 trillion won operating revenue, down just 10.0% year-on-year, seems impressive amidst a deeply corrected global cryptocurrency market. However, when attention shifts to the profit statement, the focus of the story immediately changes: operating profit was only 869.3 billion won, plummeting 26.7% year-on-year, and net profit fell 27.9% to 708.9 billion won, with the decline in profit approaching three times that of revenue.

This set of “slight revenue decline, significant profit contraction” represents that Dunamu, facing declining trading volumes and pressure on income, must confront the dual pressures of rigid costs and leverage effects. On one side, the ceiling on matching business is nearing, while fixed costs such as technology operations, compliance investments, and risk control systems cannot be easily reduced in line with market trends, resulting in rapidly eroded profit contributions from unit revenue. In other words, the profit leverage amplified during the past boom cycle has now reversed into a cost leverage that magnifies losses in a bear market.

This difference is further interpreted as amplified by the market regarding Dunamu. As the largest cryptocurrency exchange operator in South Korea, its performance has long been regarded as a "weather vane" for the country's cryptocurrency ecosystem. When this weather vane indicates “revenue can still hold its ground, but profit is starting to retract sharply,” the market reads not only the operational pressures of a single company but also a collective depiction of how the entire exchange sector is revealing vulnerabilities in its profit model after a high volatility cycle ends.

A fragile structure with over 98% coming from fees

The truly glaring data lies in the revenue structure. In 2025, Dunamu derived as much as 98.26% of its revenue from transaction fees, meaning it has almost become an extremely simplified business model: matching transactions, charging based on volume, while all other business forms contribute a negligible proportion at the financial level. When the bull market is booming, and transactions are explosive, this highly concentrated and transaction volume-bound model can amplify cycles into profit machines; but once it enters a downturn, it also directly translates shrinking transaction volumes into cold, hard numbers on financial reports.

In a scenario of declining trading volumes, such a nearly "pure fee single-factor" structure will amplify negative effects. Prices fall, volatility converges, participants exit, and the first thing to be drained is market depth, followed by daily transactions, ultimately translating to a revenue curve centered around fees. Without sufficient diversified revenue to hedge against these declines, all performance elasticity is squeezed onto a single variable of “whether anyone places an order and how many orders are placed.” Thus, even if revenue only drops by 10%, profit could see a pullback several times that of the revenue decline due to rigid costs and rising rates.

Meanwhile, the risks of “fee ceilings” and “price wars” are quietly accumulating. The main battlefield of long-term competition between exchanges focuses on who can offer lower fees, stronger incentives, and bolder rebates. When top platforms are forced to use fee reductions to exchange for activity and depth, under the premise of 98.26% revenue reliance on fees, every percentage point given away will directly pierce through the bottom line of profit margins. In comparison, traditional capital markets have long attempted to diversify their business structures through proprietary investments, asset management, technology output, and more. Now, the extreme concentration seen in Dunamu's report is not just a story of “single-point extremity” but rather a structural concern.

A global resonance of halved market value and thin trading

Dunamu's performance pressures appear to resonate in conjunction with global timelines. Research reports show that the total global cryptocurrency market value declined by about 40% from its 2024 peak. This is not merely a correction of a single asset, but a revaluation of an entire asset class. The most direct consequence of shrinking market value is the overall thinning of “tradable chip value,” which is strongly correlated with a systematic reduction in trading volume.

In this grand environment, “trading volume decreases as market value shrinks” has almost become a chain reaction already written into industry consensus. More funds choose to wait and reduce turnover, institutional strategies shift from chasing volatility to risk contraction, and retail investors gradually exit high-risk assets, leading to a decline in active orders and fills on the order book. With Dunamu’s 98.26% fee revenue ratio deeply tied to transaction activity, it naturally becomes the first to bear the brunt of this global retracement.

Voices from multiple industry media point to the same reason — “performance pressure mainly stems from the decline in trading volume in the cryptocurrency market amid a global economic downturn”. The weakening global economy reduces risk appetite, and the weight of cryptocurrency assets in asset allocation is passively compressed, transitioning from the FOMO frenzy at the end of the 2024 bull market to the coldness in front of screens in 2025. What once were rapidly flashing order books on trading software, updated every few minutes to reach historical highs, are now replaced by narrow intraday fluctuations and prolonged sideways trading.

This scene transition is visibly clear: from social media slogans of “pumping up” and “ALL IN” to rational calmness of “reducing positions and waiting” for the next cycle; from retail investors intensely checking candlesticks late into the night to becoming bystanders who only glance at the market during significant macro events after hitting app notifications. The numbers in Dunamu's financial reports merely materialize this retreat in emotions into revenue and profit curves.

Chain reactions of retail investors and local market sentiment in South Korea

In the South Korean local market, Dunamu's role is not simply that of a regular trading platform. As the operator of Upbit, it almost carries the vast majority of local retail investors' first contact and daily participation in cryptocurrency assets, with its performance and trading heat directly affecting the sentiment of a large number of local investors. The operating revenue of 15.6 trillion won and net profit of 708.9 billion won in the financial report may be a financial sample for global investors but serves as a barometer of ecological “business sentiment” for South Korean retail investors.

Local participants in South Korea are far more sensitive to Upbit’s trading dynamics than to any macro index. When daily average transaction values surge and hot assets are frequently lifted, they naturally interpret it as “the market is back”; conversely, when trading is thin, new project launches decrease, and activity frequency drops, sentiment shifts toward defense or even withdrawal. Now, as Dunamu reveals a 10% year-on-year decline in revenue and over 26% drop in profit, the market easily infers: if even the top weather vane is under pressure, the quietness ordinary users perceive is likely not an individual illusion but a true reflection of the entire market structure.

The decline in performance subsequently impacts confidence and activity levels. Investors witnessing a weakening of the platform's profitability may be more inclined to reduce trading frequency and cut down on high-frequency turnover, with some funds even choosing to fully exit, awaiting a clearer macro turning point. This cycle of “reports → emotions → behaviors → feedback to reports” makes Dunamu's financial data not merely reflect the market in one direction but also play a role in shaping market sentiment. Beneath the narrative of the “weather vane,” the financial report of a single company is magnified into a footnote about the fate of the entire South Korean cryptocurrency industry, which is a natural progression.

What stories can exchanges tell when the volume narrative disappears?

Dunamu's 2025 curve presents a brutal question to all exchanges: when the story of “continuously increasing trading volume” comes to a halt, how much growth space is left for traditional matching businesses? Relying on natural increments, new capital inflow, higher leverage, and faster turnover—these once constituted the golden age keywords for exchanges, are now losing their narrative magic under the double constraints of stock competition and tightening regulations.

For a platform where 98.26% of revenue comes from fees, this question is particularly sharp. In a bear market, the dual pullback in price and trading volume nearly renders the idea of “hedging cycle risks with fees” untenable—while revenue remains highly pro-cyclical, cost appears clearly counter-cyclical, resulting in an inability to smooth performance fluctuations through internal structural adjustments. Dunamu's operating revenue only dropped 10%, while profit fell by more than a quarter quantifies this plight.

Narratively, when new assets and stories are temporarily exhausted, exchanges face exponentially larger difficulties in maintaining growth expectations. Without new blockbuster tracks, without wealth myths capable of igniting social media, and relying solely on the narrow fluctuations of established assets, it becomes hard to sustain the imagination of “high-speed growth in the next phase.” As such, external attention begins turning towards diversified revenues, service extensions, and regional expansions—despite this financial report not disclosing detailed compositions of various business lines nor providing specific guidance for future new businesses, the market instinctively seeks clues for “second curves beyond fees.”

In a sense, this reflects a grand question behind Dunamu's financial report: when the growth narrative of matching businesses comes to a conclusion, what new stories can exchanges tell to carry forward their established scale and valuation expectations?

Reading the prelude to the next round of reshuffling from a financial report

Returning to the starting point, Dunamu's 2025 performance decline is a typical synchronous resonance with the macro backdrop of the total global cryptocurrency market value retracting by about 40% from its 2024 peak: reduced market value, shrinking trading volumes, pressured fee income, high leverage profit pullbacks, the entire chain clearly reflects the cyclical vulnerability of the traditional exchange model. Operating revenue of 15.6 trillion won (-10.0%), operating profit of 869.3 billion won (-26.7%), net profit of 708.9 billion won (-27.9%), these numbers behind a model purely reliant on fees have been magnified in vulnerability during adverse conditions.

This raises more structural questions regarding the sustainability of a “highly fee-dependent model”: when 98.26% of revenue is tied to the same thread, any disturbances arising from trading volume, fee rates, or competitive landscapes will be exponentially amplified. For a leading platform viewed as a cryptocurrency weather vane in South Korea, performance pressure not only reflects reality at the financial report level but may also herald a new round of differentiation and reshuffling in the industry—whoever can first escape from a single model will have the opportunity to grasp pricing power in the next cycle; conversely, they may be gradually marginalized in price wars and battles over existing stock.

This time, Dunamu threw a question to the entire industry with its financial report: in the next annual financial statement, will it still tell the same old story of “fees and trading volume,” or will it have begun writing a new chapter?

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