Song Chi-hyung Net Worth

Song Chi-hyung has an estimated net worth of $2.6 billion, according to Forbes Real-Time Billionaires, Song Chi-hyung profile (figures as of October 20, 2026). That is down from a peak of $3.7 billion.

Song Chi-hyung is a South Korean entrepreneur and the cofounder and chairman of Dunamu, the company that operates Upbit, South Korea's largest crypto exchange by daily trading volume. He was born in September 1979 in Gongju, South Korea, and Forbes describes him as self-made.

He attended Chungnam Science High School and entered Seoul National University in 1998, where he earned a bachelor's degree in computer science and economics. He began his career at Danal, a local mobile payment company, and joined the consulting firm Innomove in 2011.

He started Dunamu in 2012 with Kim Hyoung-nyon, who is also a billionaire. Song served as CEO in the early years and stepped back to become chairman in 2017.

How Song Chi-hyung made his money

Dunamu did not start in crypto. Its first products were an e-book platform and a news aggregation service called Newsmate. The big change came in 2017, when the company launched Upbit, a cryptocurrency exchange that grew into the largest in the country by daily volume.

Dunamu drew investors such as Kakao Ventures, the Silicon Valley venture firm Altos Ventures and Hybe, the agency behind BTS. In 2021, Hybe bought a 2.5% stake in a deal that valued Dunamu at $17 billion.

In 2018, Song and two other Upbit executives were accused of inflating trading volume through rigged Bitcoin transactions. Upbit denied wrongdoing, and in 2023 the Supreme Court of Korea found Song not guilty. In November 2025, Naver said its payment arm, Naver Financial, would acquire Dunamu in a stock swap valuing the combined company at $13.6 billion.

Song's background in computer science and payments shaped Dunamu from the start. The company spent its first years trying different consumer apps before crypto trading took off, and that pivot turned a small startup into one of the most valuable private tech firms in South Korea. It also made him one of the best-known founders of his generation in the country.

How Forbes has valued Song Chi-hyung

Forbes put Song on its World's Billionaires List in 2022 at $3.7 billion, near the height of the crypto boom. He reappeared on the 2026 list at $2.4 billion, after the Naver deal was announced.

As of October 20, 2026, the Forbes real-time billionaires tracker showed $2.6 billion. His fortune rests on his stake in Dunamu, so it rises and falls with the value placed on the exchange business.