Buying every new listing on Upbit and Bithumb in 2025 at day-1 close left you with roughly $0.31–$0.32 per dollar invested. Both exchanges delivered about a 70% loss.
> Out of all listings combined, only a handful posted positive returns. KITE was the standout on both exchanges (+233% on Upbit, +210% on Bithumb). The rest of the winners were gold-linked tokens like XAUT and PAXG, or late-year listings that simply haven't had time to bleed yet.
> Bithumb listed 2.4x more tokens than Upbit but ended up in the same place. More listings didn't mean more opportunities. It just meant more ways to lose money at the same rate.
> Interestingly, Binance wasn't much different either. According to C4lvin's analysis, Binance's 2025 listings returned -71.7%, worse than both Korean exchanges. The listing event itself structurally works against day-1 buyers, regardless of the exchange.
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