Upbit and Bithumb, two prominent South Korean cryptocurrency exchanges, are set to compensate investors a total of $2.5 million due to service outages that occurred following a declaration of martial law on December 3, 2024. The martial law, announced by President Yoon Suk Yeol amidst rising political tensions, led to an overwhelming surge in user activity on these exchanges, with Upbit's user volume spiking from 100,000 to 1.1 million concurrent users. Consequently, this influx of traffic resulted in significant downtimes, with Upbit experiencing 99 minutes of interruption, while Bithumb faced outages for 62 minutes. Upbit will compensate approximately 596 cases with 3.14 billion South Korean won ($2.1 million), whereas Bithumb will pay 377.5 million won ($262,000) across 124 cases. Following the incident, South Korean financial authorities have recommenced inspections of crypto exchanges and are looking into server expansions and improved internal processes to enhance response measures.

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