South Korean Ruling Party Lawmaker Accused of "Pressuring Upbit, Securing Bithumb Job for Son," Denies Allegations

BlockBeats News, December 29th. Kim Byung-ki, an in-house representative of South Korea's ruling Democratic Party, is facing pressure to resign. Multiple South Korean media outlets revealed that he was accused of a serious conflict of interest when his son interned at the competing exchange Bithumb while he was pushing for criticism against Upbit, South Korea's largest cryptocurrency exchange, in the National Assembly.

According to a former aide of Kim, at Kim's request, the team was instructed to "attack" Dunamu, the operator of Upbit, in the National Assembly, focusing on accusing them of market monopoly issues. The instructions reportedly took place in February of this year when Kim was still a member of the National Assembly's Legislation and Judiciary Committee, which directly oversees domestic financial institutions and cryptocurrency exchanges.

A investigative media outlet, NewsTapa, previously revealed that Kim's son was "swiftly arranged" as an intern for Bithumb's data analytics team shortly after his father's private meeting with Bithumb in November 2024. In the following weeks, Kim criticized a "monopolistic exchange" in committee meetings multiple times, though not by name, but widely interpreted as referring to Upbit.

Kim also mentioned that the exchange platform had around 700,000 violations found in anti-money laundering (AML) and know your customer (KYC) checks but did not make similar comments about other exchanges with similar issues (including Bithumb). In response, Bithumb denied any wrongdoing, stating their recruitment process was "open and transparent." Kim himself denied the allegations, emphasizing that his statements were merely a principled stance against monopolies, and his son's employment was "completely unrelated to his legislative activities."