South Korean digital asset platform Gopax suspended both trading and withdrawals on Friday after receiving an email warning of a potential hack, announcing that it is moving all stored cryptocurrency into offline cold storage as a proactive measure to safeguard client funds.
Gopax suspended standard deposit and withdrawal operations at 2:55 p.m. local time, followed by a trading halt at 3:53 p.m., as reported by Yonhap News Agency, which cited the exchange itself. Automated withdrawals via the mobile application and website are currently offline. Users wishing to retrieve their coins must submit a request through the customer support division, where staff evaluate and process each transaction manually following internal confirmation.
“To guarantee the secure preservation of user holdings, we intend to relocate all virtual assets into cold wallets for safekeeping,” stated Gopax in comments published by the Seoul Economic Daily. “Immediate withdrawals through the official Gopax platform or mobile app are temporarily suspended, and clients seeking to pull out their funds are required to submit requests through the Gopax customer support department.”
No actual theft or loss of funds has been officially confirmed. The business has not yet announced a timeline for resuming normal trading or standard withdrawal services.
What Gopax closed and what still works
Because trading was disabled, all active open orders were canceled, according to reports from Chosun Biz. While deposits were initially frozen alongside withdrawals, subsequent local updates indicated that deposits were restored while online and app-based withdrawals remained offline. Processing manual withdrawals through customer service is expected to take significantly longer than normal.
A cold wallet refers to a storage architecture kept completely disconnected from the internet, which is otherwise used by hot wallets to facilitate automated user transfers. Gopax explained that transferring any remaining hot-wallet reserves into cold storage aims to minimize the vulnerable attack surface accessible to external malicious actors.
A company representative told Yonhap that the message originated from an anonymous sender claiming an ability to breach the exchange, though the credibility of the threat has not yet been validated. “We appreciate your patience, as this precaution is designed to avert financial accidents and protect user capital,” the firm noted.
A rough stretch for Korean crypto platforms
This emergency freeze occurs during a week when exchange security has faced intense scrutiny. On October 29, malicious actors drained roughly $6.34 billion from Binance hot wallets during what Binance subsequently characterized as a multi-month operation that kicked off with a bogus employment interview. The FBI has attributed the theft to North Korea, while Binance has gradually restored withdrawals in phases, noting it will reimburse user losses using its own reserves.
Additionally, Brazil’s Mercado Bitcoin halted deposits and withdrawals earlier in the week following its own security breach, with preliminary estimates of suspicious transactions reaching approximately $40 million. The situation at Gopax differs based on the current disclosures, as the firm is dealing with a threatening message and precautionary lockdown rather than a verified theft of funds.
Gopax has also grappled with recent account vulnerabilities. Starting in early September, unusual access attempts compromised specific user accounts, exposing the personal details of seven customers and two present or former workers, with further data exposure confirmed last month, according to a Yonhap report. The enterprise has managed that data breach as an event separate from Friday’s warning email, and no direct connection has been established.
Furthermore, South Korea’s Financial Services Commission has maintained pressure on domestic platforms following a wider wave of security breaches across financial institutions. Local exchanges are already mandated to retain at least 80% of customer digital assets in cold storage. Friday’s action moves an even greater portion of Gopax reserves offline while verification of the threat continues.
For bitcoin owners utilizing Gopax, the immediate consequence is a waiting queue: tokens are securely stored offline while support agents manually validate outbound transfers one by one. Although this process is slower than a standard automated interface, the exchange asserts it is a necessary compromise to keep user balances secure.
The primary challenge for Gopax moving forward will be completing the cold storage migration, clearing the manual withdrawal backlog without incident, and providing a reopening date for trading—or ensuring that the unconfirmed threat does not materialize into the exact breach they are trying to prevent.
Originally published at https://bitcoinmagazine.com/news/gopax-suspends-withdrawals-hacking-threat.
