Bitcoin Forum

A month ago there's a news where Lee Jung-Hoon aka Bithumb's former owner acquitted in the first instance because he was allegedly defrauded 100 billion won ($70 million) during negotiations for the acquisition of Bithumb from Kim Byung-gun since October 2018 [1].

Recently there's a news where Kang Jong-hyun is manipulating and embezzling the stock price of Bithumb exchange. Kang Jong-hyun is a shareholder of Bithumb exchange and he's suspected a Bithumb's former owner [2].

But Bithumb denying if Kang John-hyun is a former owner of their exchange and they said he has no relation to Bithumb.


However there's a news where they said Kang Jong-hyun is an anonymous owner of Bithumb [3]. If you search on google and everywhere you wouldn't find who's actually the owner of Bithumb because there are a lot articles talk about Kang Jong-hyun is former owner or actually the real owner.

The question is how possible a big centralized exchange like Bithumb which is currently at top 10 position in Coinmarketcap [4] can be anonymous? I believe they're a licensed and regulated, so there's no possible they can hide their identity.

There's 3 possible answer in this case:
1. The journalist is right for saying Kang John-hyun is the real Bithumb's owner.
2. Bithumb is right for saying Kang John-hyun have no relation with them.
3. The journalist is right for saying Kang John-hyun is the former owner of Bithumb, but who's the real of Bithumb owner?

Aside of those questions, I think Bithumb is can't be trusted because there are few accusations have been created in this forum before [5] [6] [7].

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[1] https://cointelegraph.com/news/bithumb-former-chair-lee-jung-hoon-acquitted-in-the-first-instance
[2] https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2023/02/02/south-korean-prosecutors-arrest-executive-linked-to-crypto-exchange-bithumb-report/
[3] https://financefeeds.com/de-facto-owner-of-bithumb-exchange-arrested-in-south-korea/
[4] https://coinmarketcap.com/rankings/exchanges/
[5] https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5316003.0
[6] https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2636545.0
[7] https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2296862

First of all it's South Korean exchange and website is in their language too, that means it's not used globally. Also, South Korea has a reputation for corruption, it's probably not something terrible because according to CPI, their score is 63 but that's pretty enough to be welcome corruption when it comes to millions of dollars.

Also, usually companies use shell companies to hide their identity, i.e. company owns another company that owns another company and so on. Bithumb isn't an exception of course.
1. Bithumb is owned by Bithumb Holdings
2. Bithumb Holdings is owned by BTC Korea.com Co. Ltd.

Can't find who owns BTC Korea.com Co. Ltd, then tried ChatGPT and it said that it's owned by  ST Blockchain Fund but can't find any evidence but at the same time, South Korea: Bithumb Exchange Operator Gains $200 Million From Japanese Investment Fund (https://cointelegraph.com/news/south-korea-bithumb-exchange-operator-gains-200-million-from-japanese-investment-fund)

You're giving a subjective opinion, according to CPI South Korea currently at 31 position from 180 countries which mean South Korea isn't corrupted country if we looking on the big picture.

Denmark on other hands become the top country of anti corruption, but it doesn't mean Denmark is 100% clean without any corruption case, this is one of corruption case in Denmark https://time.com/5793569/denmark-cumex-tax-fraud-corruption/

Isn't the dispute supposed to be over the identity of the CEO because he makes the important decisions?
The owner or the shareholder is not the problem, given that such companies are listed according to the regulatory authorities, which inform the owner.

In general, your topic raises an important question about how to verify the owners of the platforms, which I used to think that, like most stocks in the stock exchange, they are either offered to everyone or to private companies.

I don't know why but in the crypto space hiding identity is not new I mean privacy is part of crypto itself but, I found a lot of something like this but Cex is new to me, usually, people make a project and their team is hidden and remain anonymous. and need to beware because when something happen fail they usually remain hidden and stash away the money

Doing a brief research, it's unclear who the first founders were. Some cases of this exchange: tax evasion, hacking, manipulation, illegal transaction fraud. I can no longer assume this is a clean company. While it's true that Bithumb is just the scene of a scandal that someone anonymous actually scripted, changing the CEO is to run a different party.

Given enough time and money and effort you can bury corporate ownership though blind trusts and the like. (At least here in the US)
But, on the other side given enough money and time and effort you can figure it out.

For the average person trying to do it, the task might be very difficult if not impossible. For a government to do it with their resources it's fairly easy.
BUT...if the government does find out if they share that information with you is a different story.

For all the amounts being thrown about in crypto, in terms of and decent sized financial institution they are very very tiny. So, it's easier to hide.

-Dave