The Flow Foundation is mounting a legal defense against a coordinated delisting by South Korea’s major exchanges following a December protocol-level exploit. By filing a motion with the Seoul Central District Court, the team behind $FLOW is pushing to maintain access for its Korean user base, arguing that the security concerns cited by exchanges have been fully remediated.
Why are South Korean exchanges delisting $FLOW?
The conflict stems from a December 27 security incident where an attacker minted approximately 3.9 million duplicate tokens. While the Flow Foundation successfully executed an "isolated recovery" to destroy the counterfeit assets, preventing any loss of user funds, the event triggered a wave of caution among Korean platforms.
On February 12, the "Big Three" Korean exchanges—Upbit, Bithumb, and Coinone—announced their intention to cease trading support for $FLOW by March 16. The exchanges cited the exploit as the primary driver for their risk-management decision, despite the Foundation’s remediation efforts.
Has the security risk been resolved?
According to the Foundation and major global liquidity providers, the answer is a definitive yes. Following an independent review, global exchanges including Binance, Coinbase, Kraken, and HTX have all maintained or restored trading support.
Notably, Binance removed its monitoring tag for $FLOW on March 6 after confirming the incident was fully contained. Furthermore, Korbit, a regulated Korean exchange, conducted its own internal audit and opted to remove its trading-caution label on February 27, signaling that the regulatory friction is not universal across the Korean market.
Timeline of the Flow Incident
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| Dec 27, 2025 | Protocol-level exploit results in 3.9M duplicate tokens |
| Feb 12, 2026 | Upbit, Bithumb, and Coinone announce delisting plans |
| Feb 27, 2026 | Korbit removes caution label after internal security audit |
| Mar 6, 2026 | Binance removes monitoring tag, confirming issue resolution |
| Mar 8, 2026 | Flow Foundation files injunction with Seoul Central District Court |