Upbit, South Korea's largest crypto exchange, added a KMNO/KRW trading pair for Kamino Finance at 1:30 p.m. KST on August 7, giving the Solana lending protocol's token direct won-denominated access for the first time. Kamino had already traded on Upbit in BTC and USDT pairs since a June 19, 2026 listing, so the addition extends rather than introduces its presence on the exchange.
The same day, Upbit separately listed Block Street's BSB token across three pairs — BSB/KRW, BSB/BTC, and BSB/USDT — at 3:00 p.m. KST. Block Street describes itself as an onchain capital markets infrastructure protocol built for tokenized stocks and other real-world assets.
Kamino's expanding roadmap
The KRW pair lands as Kamino Finance works through a busy 2026 roadmap. The protocol has flagged a Lend V2 launch for the third quarter, a modular lending upgrade meant to support real-world-asset and peer-to-peer lending products on Solana, alongside its first governance votes giving KMNO holders a say in protocol decisions. As of late July, Kamino carried a market capitalization of roughly $92.66 million on daily volume near $4.85 million — won-pair access on a major Korean venue could meaningfully widen that liquidity base.
Won access as a liquidity signal
Direct KRW pairs matter disproportionately for token liquidity because South Korea's retail trading volumes rank among the largest in the world, and won-denominated pairs let local traders transact without first converting into BTC or a stablecoin. Listing both a maturing DeFi protocol and a new RWA-focused project on the same day suggests Upbit is actively courting the RWA and structured-lending niches, categories that have drawn heavy institutional interest elsewhere in the market this year.
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