Dunamu beat a KDAC-Korbit consortium and Hecto Wallet One for the 267M won contract, after requirements like immediate custody and full hack loss compensation favored large exchanges.
Alpha Score of 72 reflects strong overall profile with strong momentum, strong value, moderate quality, moderate sentiment.
South Korea's police picked Dunamu, the company behind Upbit, to hold all the crypto it seizes during criminal investigations. The one-year contract is worth 267 million won (about $193,000). Dunamu scored 94.73 points on the tender. A consortium of Korea Digital Asset Custody (KDAC) and the Korbit exchange came second with 91.29. Hecto Wallet One placed third at 87.27.
The result was no surprise. Smaller custody firms had warned for months that the police's requirements gave an edge to large exchanges. The conditions included immediate full custody of any asset, a 24-hour response team, and 100% compensation for hacking losses. One bidder said its request for an on-site inspection was never reflected in the scoring. "The math only works for a company with Dunamu's balance sheet," a person familiar with the losing bids told local media.
The police defended the terms as necessary for public funds. "We selected the operator through fair competition," an agency spokesperson said. Some critics conceded the conditions made sense for the state, just not for any smaller firm.
The process had stalled three times before the fourth round. The first 2025 posting drew no bidders. The second collapsed when only one firm applied. The third ended when no one cleared the 85-point technical threshold. To attract serious applicants, the police raised the budget more than threefold, from 83 million won to 267 million won.
Behind the push is a string of losses. In January, about 320 Bitcoin (BTC) worth roughly $48 million disappeared from the Gwangju District Prosecutors' Office. Two months later, Gangnam police disclosed that 22 Bitcoins worth about $1.5 million had vanished from assets seized in 2021. Both cases involved USB-based wallets and lapses in private-key protection. Over five years, South Korean police have seized an estimated 54.5 billion won in crypto, and the volume kept outrunning their ability to guard it.
The winner is now first in line. The police can finalize terms with Dunamu and ignore other bidders unless talks fall through. Attention shifts to whether the police can close the deal before the next audit turns up another gap.
Prepared with AlphaScala research tooling and grounded in primary market data: live prices, fundamentals, SEC filings, hedge-fund holdings, and insider activity. Each story is checked against AlphaScala publishing rules before release. Educational coverage, not personalized advice.