South Korea’s two major crypto exchanges, Upbit and Bithumb, added new AI-related tokens to their platforms on Oct. 2.
Bithumb opened trading for Talus, ticker US, against the Korean won, while Upbit added Dolphin, ticker POD, across its KRW, BTC and USDT markets.
Bithumb started Talus trading at 3 p.m. Korea Standard Time with a reference price of KRW37.85. Deposits for the token are supported only through the Sui network.
Upbit scheduled Dolphin trading to begin at 4 p.m., with POD available against the Korean won, Bitcoin and Tether. Deposits and withdrawals for POD are supported only through the Base network.
Talus and Dolphin are both connected to artificial intelligence, but they focus on different areas.
Talus is designed around AI agents that can perform blockchain-related tasks while keeping important activity verifiable onchain. Its system combines blockchain verification with offchain computing for tasks that require more resources.
Talus uses its Nexus framework to organize AI services into workflows. The project launched Protocol v2.0 on Sui mainnet in August, improving the infrastructure used by AI agents to execute transactions and other actions.
The US token is used within the Talus ecosystem for things such as service payments, staking and governance-related activities.
Bithumb introduced its normal restrictions for a newly listed asset. Buying was blocked during the first five minutes, while sell orders during that period were restricted to a range around the KRW37.85 reference price.
Only limit orders were available during roughly the first two hours of trading.
Upbit gave Dolphin three trading markets from the start. POD was available against KRW, BTC and USDT.
The exchange set initial reference prices at KRW428, 0.00000367 BTC and 0.3147 USDT. Trading was scheduled for 4 p.m., with deposits and withdrawals expected to open within two hours of the announcement.
Dolphin focuses more directly on AI computing. Its network is designed to connect unused GPUs with AI inference requests.
The project groups nodes running the same AI model into pools and sends user requests to available computing resources. The goal is to create a distributed system for AI workloads instead of relying entirely on centralized cloud providers.
POD is a Base-based token with a total supply of 500 million. The project has also worked with Venice on the Dolphin Mistral 24B Venice Edition.
Upbit says POD is used for staking and bonding within the Dolphin network.
Upbit introduced similar launch restrictions for POD. Buying was restricted for the first few minutes, certain low-priced sell orders were limited, and only limit orders were available during the initial trading period.
Although both projects focus on AI infrastructure, their approaches are different.
Talus is mainly focused on AI agents, their identities, permissions and actions, with blockchain records helping users verify how those agents operate.
Dolphin is more focused on distributed computing and connecting GPU operators with AI inference workloads.
Talus launched its first protocol on Sui mainnet in April and released Protocol v2.0 in August. The project also introduced a new API in September to help developers access structured data generated by AI-agent activity.
Dolphin has already been trading outside South Korea for several months. Poloniex added POD/USDT trading in May, while other exchanges and onchain platforms also supported the token before the Upbit listing.
The new Korean listings also come as local crypto trading activity remains lower than a year earlier. South Korea’s major won-based exchanges recorded a significant decline in trading volume during the first half of the year, with Upbit continuing to account for most of the local market activity.
Both Bithumb and Upbit warned that trading could be delayed if sufficient liquidity is not available.
Users also need to use the correct networks when transferring the tokens. Talus deposits and withdrawals on Bithumb use Sui, while Dolphin transfers on Upbit use Base.
Talus and Dolphin both saw large price movements around the time of the listings, but the available market data does not prove that the Korean listings alone caused those moves. Both tokens were already trading on other exchanges and blockchain markets before being added by Upbit and Bithumb.
