Key Highlights
- Upbit will delist Loopring on March 16 after concerns over transparency, legitimacy, and project sustainability surfaced.
- LRC withdrawals must be completed by April 16; pending orders will be canceled, and deposits after this date may be lost.
- Security issues and stricter rules show South Korea’s exchanges prioritizing investor protection and compliance.
South Korea’s biggest crypto exchange, Upbit, will stop trading Loopring (LRC) on March 16, 2026. The decision comes after a careful review of the token’s transparency, business activities, and progress.
In an announcement, Upbit raised several concerns of a lack of clear information, questions about the project’s legitimacy, and doubts about its long-term sustainability—issues that could put users’ funds at risk.
This action comes after Loopring was added to a delisting watchlist by Upbit, Bithumb, and Korbit in late January 2026. The purpose of the watchlist period was to give the project some time to address the compliance issues.
Despite this, the exchanges observed that the issues were not resolved, thus discontinuing their support for the token. Upbit had listed the LRC token as a “caution” asset on January 30, cautioning investors about the risks involved.
Details of trading termination
According to Upbit, trading support for the LRC/BTC pair will officially end on March 16, 2026, at 15:00 KST. All pending buy and sell orders will be canceled automatically at that time. Users must withdraw their LRC tokens within 30 days, by April 16, 2026. After this period, deposits—including mistaken transfers—will no longer be reflected, and recovery may take significant technical effort.
In addition to Upbit’s move, other exchanges in the Digital Asset eXchange Association (DAXA) can also warn users, label tokens as “caution” coins, or stop trading entirely to keep investors safe. Upbit stressed that ending LRC trading follows its official policy for handling risky digital assets.
Loopring’s technical framework
Loopring is built on Ethereum as a Layer-2 solution, combining a decentralized exchange (DEX) with a payment service. This lets users trade ETH and other tokens faster and cheaper than directly on Ethereum.
In this regard, the platform maintains the trading data off the blockchain while recording the final transactions on the blockchain through zero-knowledge proof. This has the effect of ensuring the trade transactions are secure and reliable, yet at the same time, quite fast, considering the nature of the Ethereum system.
However, in the review by Upbit, several concerns were raised regarding Loopring’s progress. Even though this technology seems to hold great promise, some key pieces of information have been lacking. As a result, this has raised warning flags for investors and other regulatory authorities.
Security concerns amplify scrutiny
Upbit’s decision to delist Loopring comes amid wider security concerns. Recently, an attacker laundered about 1,500 ETH through Tornado Cash after exploiting a hot wallet. Blockchain firms Specter and MistTrack traced the funds to wallet 0x93A0, which now carries a severe risk rating for money laundering.
To address this, Upbit recently moved over 99% of the users’ assets into cold storage, which is above the regulatory requirement of 80%. It has also made a commitment to cover losses from its own reserves.
The setting of delisting criteria is also indicative of the country’s priority on compliance, transparency, and users’ protection. At the time of writing, as per CoinMarketCap data, Loopring (LRC) was trading around $0.034, dropping about 12% in the last 24 hours.
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