South Korea’s Upbit and Bithumb list new AI tokens

Upbit separately scheduled Dolphin, ticker POD, to begin trading at 4 p.m. across its KRW, BTC and USDT markets. The exchange supports POD deposits and withdrawals through Base, using contract address 0xeD664536023d8E4b1640C394777D34aBAFF1dF8F.

Bithumb gives Talus direct won trading

Bithumb’s listing gives Korean users a direct won market for Talus without requiring an intermediate stablecoin or Bitcoin trade. Deposits and withdrawals were scheduled to open within two hours of the exchange’s 12:14 p.m. notice, subject to the required 20 network confirmations.

The exchange describes Talus as an onchain AI-agent platform that combines blockchain-based verification with offchain computation. Talus uses its Nexus framework to organize services into workflows while allowing resource-heavy tasks to run outside the chain.

Talus itself said in August that Protocol v2.0 had been deployed on Sui mainnet. The release upgraded infrastructure used by AI agents that can execute transactions and other actions while leaving records that can be verified onchain.

Its documentation describes US as the network token used for functions including service pricing, staking and governance-related participation. Talus is built on the Sui Move stack and combines its agent framework with the Nexus protocol.

Bithumb imposed its standard controls for newly listed assets. Buy orders were blocked for the first five minutes, while sell orders during that period could not be placed below 90% or above 200% of the KRW37.85 reference price. Only limit orders are available for approximately the first two hours.

Upbit opens three markets for Dolphin

Upbit is giving Dolphin a wider set of trading pairs from launch, with POD available against Korean won, Bitcoin and Tether.

Its notice set pre-listing reference prices at KRW428, 0.00000367 BTC and 0.3147 USDT at 1:20 p.m. Korea time. Trading was scheduled to begin at 4 p.m., while deposits and withdrawals were expected to open within two hours of the announcement.

Dolphin is an AI and decentralized physical infrastructure project focused on distributing AI inference work across unused GPUs. Nodes running the same AI model are placed in pools, with user requests assigned to available computing resources.

Poloniex described the project when it listed POD in May as an AI lab developing open models and distributed inference. Its listing identifies POD as a Base token with a total supply of 500 million.

The project has previously developed the Dolphin Mistral 24B Venice Edition with Venice, while its network design lets GPU owners provide computing resources for inference work. Upbit says POD is used for staking and bonding within the network.

Upbit imposed similar controls around the opening. Purchases are restricted for roughly five minutes, low-priced sell orders face an initial limit, and only limit orders are supported during approximately the first two hours.

Talus and Dolphin take different approaches to AI

Both tokens are tied to artificial intelligence infrastructure, but their products are not the same.

Talus focuses on AI agents and verifiable execution. Its system records agent identity, permissions and actions onchain while moving computation that is too heavy for smart contracts to offchain services. The project states that agent actions can be checked against onchain rules and execution records.

Dolphin is centered more directly on computing resources. Its model pools connect GPU operators with inference requests, creating a distributed alternative to running all AI workloads through centralized cloud infrastructure.

Talus launched the first version of its protocol on Sui mainnet in April and followed with Protocol v2.0 in August. The team eleased a new API in September for developers to access structured data generated by agent executions.

Dolphin has traded outside South Korea for several months. Poloniex opened POD/USDT trading on May 12, while other centralized venues had already added the Base-based token before Upbit’s Korean listing.

The South Korean listings resemble earlier occasions when the country’s two major exchanges opened markets for different tokens on the same day. In August, Upbit listed HOME while Bithumb added META2 and USDG, giving local traders several new won-linked markets at once.

Did the Bithumb and Upbit listings move prices?

Both tokens have recorded large intraday price moves, although market data cannot establish how much of those gains came directly from the Korean listings.

CoinGecko shows Talus near $0.0376, up roughly 40% over 24 hours, with a daily trading range between $0.0182 and $0.0383. Trading volume was around $20.9 million in the latest available daily data.

Dolphin was trading near $0.6765 at the latest CoinGecko reading, up roughly 115% over 24 hours. Its daily range extended from approximately $0.3046 to $0.7234.

POD’s move started from around the price level Upbit cited before its market launch, but other exchanges and onchain venues already traded the token before the Korean listing. A direct listing effect therefore cannot be isolated from overall trading activity.

South Korean listings have generated abrupt moves for other smaller tokens this year. SPX6900 rose nearly 10% when Upbit and Bithumb opened Korean markets, while May’s Pharos listing on both exchanges was accompanied by a 48% PROS rally.

The new markets arrive during a weaker year for domestic crypto trading overall. South Korea’s five main won exchanges recorded a 54.6% year-over-year drop in first-half trading volume, while Upbit continued to hold most local liquidity.

Bithumb says Talus trading can be postponed if sufficient liquidity is not available, while Upbit carries a similar condition for POD. Both exchanges require users to use the specifically supported networks, Sui for US and Base for POD, when moving the tokens to or from their platforms.