IOST exchanges in Asia: who lists it and where it trades

Which exchange, in short

Pick the exchange by country first and liquidity second. If you live in Japan, Korea, Thailand or Indonesia, a regulated local exchange lists IOST against your own currency, and that is where we would start. If you live in Vietnam or Taiwan, no local exchange lists IOST, so the realistic choice is an IOST market on a global exchange, with the legal caveats that come with it. Our step-by-step buying guide covers the full route; this page compares the venues themselves.

Most IOST trading happens in two places. Binance’s IOST/USDT book and Upbit’s KRW-IOST market each carry roughly a fifth of global volume, far ahead of anyone else. Bitkub, Bithumb, OKX and a handful of global exchanges form a middle tier. Japanese and Indonesian books are thin by comparison, even though Japan has more regulated IOST listings than any other country. The live market card in the header shows the current price across venues.

IOST exchanges compared by country

The table lists every venue our research confirmed, grouped by market. Use the chips to filter by country. “Liquidity” is relative, based on aggregated 24-hour volume and spreads in our research snapshot. IOST volumes swing a lot, so treat the labels as tiers, not rankings.

A few names are missing on purpose. bitFlyer, bitbank, GMO Coin and SBI VC Trade are large Japanese exchanges, but none handles IOST according to the FSA register. KuCoin Thailand has no IOST market. Pintu in Indonesia lists hundreds of pairs but not IOST. No FSC-registered platform in Taiwan lists IOST either. If a website tells you otherwise, check its date. For the local detail behind each row, see the country guides for Japan, South Korea, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam and Taiwan.

How to judge liquidity before you trade

Liquidity is the difference between the price you see and the price you get. On a deep book, a normal order fills at or very near the top price. On a thin book, the same order eats through several price levels, and the gap between the best bid and the best ask can be larger than the trading fee. For a low-priced token like IOST, that hidden cost often matters more than the published fee schedule.

Three checks take a minute. First, look at the spread: the gap between the best buy and best sell price, as a percentage. Binance and Upbit spreads were a small fraction of a percent in our research. Coincheck and Bitkub were above one percent, and Coinone’s was wider still. Second, look at the depth: how much IOST sits within one or two percent of the top price. If it is less than your order, split the order or use a limit price. Third, look at volume over several days, not one. IOST has had sudden spikes that retraced within days, and a single busy day says little about tomorrow.

Be skeptical of headline volume on some smaller global exchanges. Pionex, BTCC and CoinW report large IOST numbers, but aggregators flag that such volume may be bot-driven. A venue with modest, steady volume and a tight spread is often a better place to trade than one with a giant number and a wide gap.

Local fiat pairs vs crypto pairs

A local fiat pair (IOST/JPY, KRW-IOST, IOST/THB, IOST/IDR) lets you go from a bank deposit to IOST in one trade and back again in one trade. That means one fee in each direction and no stablecoin transfers. It also usually keeps you inside your country’s regulated perimeter, which matters for taxes: Thailand’s 2025–2029 capital-gains exemption applies only to SEC-licensed venues, and Indonesia taxes sales on domestic platforms at 0.21% against 1% on foreign ones.

A crypto pair is the global standard. It has the most depth, and it is the only option on Binance, where the stablecoin pair is the sole active IOST market. The cost is the extra hop: you buy crypto, move it, then buy IOST, and reverse it all when you sell. Each hop adds a fee and a chance to choose the wrong network. Some local exchanges offer both. Thailand’s Binance TH and Indonesia’s Tokocrypto list IOST/USDT, and you can buy the crypto there with local money.

If you need crypto and your local exchange does not sell it conveniently, some people buy it with a card on a general exchange. CEX.IO, running since 2013, is one example. It does not list IOST, it does not serve Japan, and Asian users contract with its Nevis entity, which holds no Asian licence.

Trading IOST globally? Get the crypto first

Most global IOST markets are quoted in crypto. Buy some with a card, then send it to the exchange you picked from the table.

Open account

Deposit and withdrawal networks, memo and fees

IOST now comes in two forms that exchanges treat as different assets. L1 IOST lives on the original IOST chain, where you send to a short account name and exchange deposits need a memo. BEP-20 IOST lives on BNB Chain since the IOST 3.0 upgrade, uses a 0x address and never takes a memo. Most Asian exchanges support only the L1 network. Sending BEP-20 IOST to an L1-only exchange is one of the fastest ways to lose coins. Details are in our guide to sending IOST and the IOST 3.0 explainer.

Two numbers on that table deserve a comment. Binance’s BEP-20 withdrawal costs 29 times more IOST than its L1 withdrawal, and its minimum is 29 times higher too, so L1 is the cheaper choice whenever the receiving side supports it. Upbit’s zero-fee IOST withdrawal is unusual; recheck it in the app before relying on it. On the IOST L1 itself there is no per-transfer token fee at all. Senders spend gas that comes from staked IOST, so the fee an exchange charges you is its own pricing, not a network toll.

The v4.0.0 hard fork: a lesson in deposit pauses

In October 2026 the IOST L1 went through a mandatory, backward-incompatible upgrade, go-iost v4.0.0. Every node operator, including exchanges, had to upgrade. The result was a stretch of days when IOST trading continued as normal but transfers in and out of some exchanges did not. Anyone who sent IOST to an exchange in that window without checking could have seen it stuck for days.

1. 18 Nov 2019Earlier precedent on UpbitNode instability halted IOST transfers; Upbit briefly flagged IOST and reopened deposits the next day.
2. 14 Oct 2026go-iost v4.0.0 releasedMandatory, backward-incompatible node upgrade on GitHub.
3. 19 Oct 2026Upgrade announcedIOST tells exchanges that have not upgraded to do so immediately.
4. 21 Oct 2026Upbit pauses IOST transfersDeposits and withdrawals suspended; trading continues.
5. 26 Oct 2026Upbit resumesIOST deposits and withdrawals reopen.
6. 30 Oct 2026Binance still pausedIOST withdrawals disabled on both L1 and BEP-20; deposits enabled.

The lesson is simple and it applies to every exchange. Before you move IOST, open the deposit or withdrawal page and read the status line for the exact network you plan to use. Read the exchange’s notice page if anything looks unusual. If a network shows maintenance, wait. A deposit sent into a paused network is usually credited later, but “usually” and “later” are not what you want to hear when the market moves.

Japan: domestic vs overseas exchanges

Japan is the strictest IOST market in Asia and the clearest. Crypto exchanges serving Japanese residents must register with the Financial Services Agency. The FSA register lists IOST for four of them: Coincheck, OKJ, BitTrade and Binance Japan. IOST is also on the JVCEA green list, which requires at least three member firms to handle a coin and at least six months since its first listing. BITPOINT and CoinTrade delisted IOST in 2026. Some Japanese articles still say otherwise.

On the other side sits the FSA’s warning list of unregistered overseas exchanges. It includes Binance (the global site, warned twice), Bybit, MEXC, Bitget, KuCoin and LBank, among others. These platforms list IOST/USDT, but they are not allowed to solicit Japanese residents. Binance Japan is a separate, registered company, and Japanese residents must use it instead of binance.com. Our position is plain: in Japan, buy IOST on one of the four registered exchanges, and prefer the 取引所 order book over the 販売所 dealer desk to avoid a spread that can reach several percent.

Binance, OKX, Coinbase and other global venues

Binance has the deepest IOST market in the world, but only one pair: IOST/USDT. Its BTC, ETH and BUSD pairs are halted. It is also the most flexible on transfers, supporting both L1 and BEP-20, and it offers a flexible IOST Earn product. It is not licensed in Vietnam, not registered in Taiwan, and Japanese, Thai and Korean users are routed to local entities. Our Binance review weighs all of that.

OKX lists IOST against USDT, USDC and EUR, with the EUR pair aimed at European users. Its USDT book sits in the middle tier. OKX is among the platforms Thailand blocked from June 2025. Gate, MEXC, KuCoin, Bitget and HTX all run IOST/USDT spot markets of varying depth. Bybit has only an IOST perpetual contract, no spot. Crypto.com Exchange lists IOST/USD, but it is effectively inactive.

Coinbase is a common search, so here is the direct answer: we found no Coinbase IOST market in the ticker data our research used, and Coinbase Japan’s FSA entry shows no IOST. If you already hold crypto on Coinbase, you can send crypto from there to an exchange that lists IOST. Always use a network both sides support.

Our exchange reviews

We reviewed the five exchanges that matter most to IOST buyers in Asia, each from the angle of someone buying, holding or moving IOST. The Coincheck review covers the strongest regulated JPY on-ramp and its thin book. The Upbit review looks at the deepest fiat market for IOST and its hack history. The Bitkub review examines the only THB order book and the governance questions around it. The Indodax review explains why its IOST/IDR pair is nearly empty. The Binance review is written for Vietnamese and Taiwanese users, who have no local option.

Once you have picked a venue, the next steps are funding the account, placing a limit order and, if you want self-custody, moving IOST to one of the IOST wallets. Whichever you choose, check the deposit status for your network first.