Police reportedly seize South Korea's largest crypto exchange Bithumb

[bitcoinst]

The Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency has reportedly seized South Korea's largest crypto exchange Bithumb for alleged fraud.

South Korea's oldest newspaper, the Seoul Shinmun, reported the news on Wednesday, saying that Bithumb's offices have been raided. The exchange is reportedly accused of pre-selling native BXA tokens worth about 30 billion won (~$25 million) to investors and then not listing the token, which has allegedly led to losses to investors.

Bithumb is said to have issued BXA tokens in 2018 concerning its acquisition by Singapore-based BK Group. But that deal reportedly didn't materialize. Bithumb chairman Lee Jung Hoon is also said to be under investigation by police on charges of escaping property.

The Block has reached out to Bithumb for comments and will update this story should we hear back.

https://www.theblockcrypto.com/linked/76692/police-reportedly-seize-bithumb-south-korea-crypto-exchange

[1714965486]

1714965486

[1714965486]

1714965486

[1714965486]

1714965486

[1714965486]

1714965486

[bitsurfer2014]

If this incident was indeed true then I'm afraid, Bithumb will suffer a major blow to its credibility and it would be good that they should settle it at once

because South Korea's law enforcement and justice system could be harsh and the Government take it seriously especially on fraud and corruption

charges, evident of which are those their past Presidents were indicted and sentenced to several years in jail. Imho.

[tomahawk9]

Well, there you have it, the reason why the market went down today:


https://bitcoinity.org/markets/bitstamp/USD

At least this whole thing has nothing to do with major cryptos like BTC or ETH but rather a sketchy token. The drop in the btc price was probably caused by korean panic sellers shitting bricks after reading the headlines    cheap coins before we test 12k again? decent short-term profits =P

[cryptomaniac_xxx]

Yeah, but it did affect the price of bitcoin, as we have been trying to get into $12k, but suddenly a major blow as the price goes down to $11,400. The issues steams from 2018, so I don't know why it took them 2 years though. And it looks like South Korea has started to get the ball roll with their investigations, first Coinbit and now Bithumb.

[Darker45]

This is a major blow to cryptocurrency trading in South Korea. Bithumb is the country's largest crypto exchange and even making it to the top ten cryptocurrency exchange in the world in terms of 24-hour trading volume.

While the case is still under investigation, the initial information available right now seems to suggest that the exchange really has a responsibility over the BXA mess which caused a significant monetary damage to the investors.

For me, this is good news, although it is also sad news at the same time. This is a statement that crypto companies have to shape up.

[minairia3]

South Korea's oldest newspaper, the Seoul Shinmun, reported the news on Wednesday, saying that Bithumb's offices have been raided. The exchange is reportedly accused of pre-selling native BXA tokens worth about 30 billion won (~$25 million) to investors and then not listing the token, which has allegedly led to losses to investors.

These is kind of activity that exchange should avoid. Now Bithumb facing a serious offense against the community. Whether its a korean exchange still its under thr Bithumb company.

Also the Global of bithumb are prone to listing potential scam projects. I dont know but it seems they made it a business affair already to list project without even have any good product at all. As long ad they pay. I'll be avoiding this exchange for now. So dangerous, we dont know that our funds could be cease anytime. I wonder what would be their initial response to this incident.

[Killrbit]

Really sad if true just heard a few people on discord also talking about this, I assumed it was just the standard rumours that come up every few months or so.

And the worst thing is so many innocent users could now have their money stuck for god knows how long, again this just shows why we need some more user friendly dexes. Though recent trends are encouraging, it's still a long way off.

[Lucius]

This crypto exchange has several scandals and I wonder what are the laws in South Korea that allow them to continue doing business despite a very careless and unprofessional attitude towards the security of their company and ultimately their clients. Only two things help here, a complete change in the management structure or the shutdown of the company - this looks like nothing but complete amateurism.

In June 2017 hackers stole user information from a Bithumb employee's personal computer.

In January 2018 Bithumb was raided by the government for alleged tax evasion. They were found not guilty but still had to pay nearly $28 million in back taxes.

In June 2018 about $32 million of cryptocurrency was stolen from Bithumb in a hack.

In January 2019 30 out of 340 total Bithumb employees were laid off in response to declining trading volume and profits in 2018.

On March 29, 2019, Bithumb said that it was hacked. It pointed its fingers at insiders. Nearly $20 million worth of EOS and Ripple tokens were estimated to have been stolen.

On April 11, 2019, Bithumb announced a net loss of KRW205.5 billion (US$180 million) in 2018, a sharp turnaround from the KRW427.2 billion profit in 2017, despite 2018's sales rising 17.5% to KRW391.7 million. The company blamed the loss on the sharp decline in the price of cryptocurrencies and reduced trading volume.

[Nellayar]

This crypto exchange has several scandals and I wonder what are the laws in South Korea that allow them to continue doing business despite a very careless and unprofessional attitude towards the security of their company and ultimately their clients. Only two things help here, a complete change in the management structure or the shutdown of the company - this looks like nothing but complete amateurism.

In June 2017 hackers stole user information from a Bithumb employee's personal computer.

In January 2018 Bithumb was raided by the government for alleged tax evasion. They were found not guilty but still had to pay nearly $28 million in back taxes.

In June 2018 about $32 million of cryptocurrency was stolen from Bithumb in a hack.

In January 2019 30 out of 340 total Bithumb employees were laid off in response to declining trading volume and profits in 2018.

On March 29, 2019, Bithumb said that it was hacked. It pointed its fingers at insiders. Nearly $20 million worth of EOS and Ripple tokens were estimated to have been stolen.

On April 11, 2019, Bithumb announced a net loss of KRW205.5 billion (US$180 million) in 2018, a sharp turnaround from the KRW427.2 billion profit in 2017, despite 2018's sales rising 17.5% to KRW391.7 million. The company blamed the loss on the sharp decline in the price of cryptocurrencies and reduced trading volume.

Now, I wonder why they raided by the police. I thought that bithumb is trusted ande safe haven cryptocurrency exchange but all of my expectation was removed by their performance. It just affect the momentum of every coins in the market. Now, that one of the largest crypto exchange was alleged to be fraud. They might lose some of their traders and I think it will really affect the current condition of market. If bithumb was found guilty, then all of traders in bithumb might hop to other exchange. I don`t know why does a catalyst always exist when the market is having a greenish days.

[hatshepsut93]

Well, there you have it, the reason why the market went down today:
https://bitcoinity.org/markets/bitstamp/USD

At least this whole thing has nothing to do with major cryptos like BTC or ETH but rather a sketchy token. The drop in the btc price was probably caused by korean panic sellers shitting bricks after reading the headlines    cheap coins before we test 12k again? decent short-term profits =P

I though that today's downside movement was pure volatility as usual, but turns out there's a reason for that, huh. Well, that's nice, it means that we'll recover quickly when the panic will subside, and 12k will indeed be retested soon. It's kinda strange that such small and insignificant in the long term news can still shake the market, only shows that the liquidity of Bitcoin market is still pretty low.

[fiulpro]

The Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency has reportedly seized South Korea's largest crypto exchange Bithumb for alleged fraud.

South Korea's oldest newspaper, the Seoul Shinmun, reported the news on Wednesday, saying that Bithumb's offices have been raided. The exchange is reportedly accused of pre-selling native BXA tokens worth about 30 billion won (~$25 million) to investors and then not listing the token, which has allegedly led to losses to investors.

Bithumb is said to have issued BXA tokens in 2018 concerning its acquisition by Singapore-based BK Group. But that deal reportedly didn't materialize. Bithumb chairman Lee Jung Hoon is also said to be under investigation by police on charges of escaping property.

The Block has reached out to Bithumb for comments and will update this story should we hear back.

https://www.theblockcrypto.com/linked/76692/police-reportedly-seize-bithumb-south-korea-crypto-exchange

Not really the fault of the police here , since here it was literally the fault of the company and therefore what they did was completely justifiable.

They had to seize it and investigations needed to be done regarding the company . I really don't know what they were thinking, one needs to at least follow the rules when it comes to things like these and the rule was pretty blunt. They cannot sell tokens before the listing , why did even the token company allow this ? Did they really think that the buyers won't complaint ?

The company needs some firm laws , at the same time it does need a professional attitude towards these things, this is why the idea of cryptocurrencies scare some people, this is so close to the scam and the allegations were quite correct.

If you are dealing with cryptocurrencies professionally you are also holding the name of Bitcoins and your actions can really soil it , therefore at least be respectful regarding what you are doing while dealing with these things.

[CryptoPoliticalEnthusiast]

I though that today's downside movement was pure volatility as usual, but turns out there's a reason for that, huh. Well, that's nice, it means that we'll recover quickly when the panic will subside, and 12k will indeed be retested soon. It's kinda strange that such small and insignificant in the long term news can still shake the market, only shows that the liquidity of Bitcoin market is still pretty low.

I doubt this was the only reason, but it probably exasperated the fall. Bitcoin typically falls at US/European night, but not this much. The seizure of the Korean exchange just adds to it.

[stompix]

This is a major blow to cryptocurrency trading in South Korea. Bithumb is the country's largest crypto exchange and even making it to the top ten cryptocurrency exchange in the world in terms of 24-hour trading volume.

Fake volume, that is.
All of them were pumping up their numbers like there was no tomorrow.

Just look, coinsbit has been raided and accounts frozen, right?
https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/coinbit/
But they still have 300millions in trade, lol!

Bithumb is raided and may be seized?
https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/bithumb/
Still 400 million in trade!!!

Who the hell still believes that crap, I remember when that scammy P2PB2B was reporting 4 billion in daily trade..

Anyhow, who's left, upbit? For how long till they either close shop and get in the van?

I though that today's downside movement was pure volatility as usual, but turns out there's a reason for that, huh. Well, that's nice, it means that we'll recover quickly when the panic will subside, and 12k will indeed be retested soon.

I don't know if that is indeed the cause but if so, the market is pretty f!
We got rid of two scammy exchanges that were manipulating volume and trades, what's the bad news in it?

[pawanjain]

I really thought bithumb had nothing to do with it but I guess I was wrong. Bithumb did a bad job preselling the tokens.
The police are just doing their job investigating the case. It is quite expected that if big exchanges like bithumb do such illicit activities then they have to suffer from the consequences. This is why people are losing trust on cryptocurrencies these days.

[noorammak]

Bithumb is not a good trading platform. In August they listed a DEFI token named YBDAO, which is a scam project. As soon as they listed on their exchange there was a price crash and they locked the deposit and deposited on this project. The error is with Bithumb when not examining a project carefully before listing it.
Police false accusations show us that bithumbs are not trustworthy. I think their recent scandal is worse than Bitfinex with a tether scandal.

[TopTort777]

What now? People will withdraw funds from Bithumb, this mass movement of funds will definitely cause little panic and price would go down again. True?

Waiting for Bithumb answer. I expect they will refute the act of police raid. Like Binance did last year, when there were news about police in their office in Shanghai.

[Ayiranorea]

Bithump isn't a universal cryptocurrency exchange. This has been the trusted exchange of South Korea. The native token based investment is termed to be the major reason for the seize of bithump. Once I tried to use the bithump exchange/platform, and found the service at present isn't that perfect and it is being developed dedicatedly for the Korean Market. So, this isn't gonna affect the global crypto market in any means.

[posi]

If this incident was indeed true then I'm afraid, Bithumb will suffer a major blow to its credibility and it would be good that they should settle it at once

because South Korea's law enforcement and justice system could be harsh and the Government take it seriously especially on fraud and corruption

charges, evident of which are those their past Presidents were indicted and sentenced to several years in jail. Imho.

The incident is truth but dont be deceived because this is not the first time of the exchange to escape authority punishment and I dont kbow made their CEO have a good lawyer or a powerful group thats helping.
Speaking of credibility, if the are able to escape the authority penalty they will get their credibility back cause they are not first exchanfe to charges with fraud and I hope you don't forget the Tether accusation either but seriously, when will crypto investors and traders wake up from sleep?

[suzanne5223]

Before now I think any crypto traders/investors that use an exchange which claimed to be hacked simultaneously is really stupid because their story line were whenever build on honesty.
With that been said, something seems not to be right about South Korea constitution concern fraud cause first it was Lee Jae-Yong and Bithimb exchange.

[Twentyonepaylots]

If this incident was indeed true then I'm afraid, Bithumb will suffer a major blow to its credibility and it would be good that they should settle it at once

This will be a huge blow for the Bithumb, even if they prove this allegation false, this will affect their credibility as cryptocurrency exchange. I bet people now on bithumb is moving out, this is what most of people usually do when their platform gets into this kind of situation. Too bad for Bithumb.

because South Korea's law enforcement and justice system could be harsh and the Government take it seriously especially on fraud and corruption

I'm impressed actually, this is not the first time that I've seen South Korea exposing some kind of this 'fraud allegation', their first turned out to be true. I hope this won't.

[JakobFugger]

In August the same police had taken action against coinbit. The reason was different from this. But it is curious how actions of this type are becoming more frequent. The question is: Would they have the same attitude against banks?

HSBC is still standing after all the proven complaints about international money laundering.

An action of this type and with this truculence affects several people worldwide. And those who receive this informatioin advance can make millions. If this pattern by the government continues, it will be bad for the market. This country is an important part of an entire ecosystem having several exchanges between the main and largest in the world.


https://www.coindesk.com/south-korea-crypto-exchange-coinbit-seized-allegations-fraud-wash-trading

[pixie85]

Well, there you have it, the reason why the market went down today:
https://bitcoinity.org/markets/bitstamp/USD

At least this whole thing has nothing to do with major cryptos like BTC or ETH but rather a sketchy token. The drop in the btc price was probably caused by korean panic sellers shitting bricks after reading the headlines    cheap coins before we test 12k again? decent short-term profits =P

I though that today's downside movement was pure volatility as usual, but turns out there's a reason for that, huh. Well, that's nice, it means that we'll recover quickly when the panic will subside, and 12k will indeed be retested soon. It's kinda strange that such small and insignificant in the long term news can still shake the market, only shows that the liquidity of Bitcoin market is still pretty low.

I wouldn't call this raid "the reason".

The same price action could be observed in the beginning of last month where the price went 12 thousand to 10.5 in 1h. Was there an exchange raided on that date as well?

Most likely a big mine is seling once a month or some rich investor is getting rid of his investment in a slow pace so that it doesn't crash the market completely.

[CaVO32]

In August the same police had taken action against coinbit. The reason was different from this. But it is curious how actions of this type are becoming more frequent. The question is: Would they have the same attitude against banks?

HSBC is still standing after all the proven complaints about international money laundering.

An action of this type and with this truculence affects several people worldwide. And those who receive this informatioin advance can make millions. If this pattern by the government continues, it will be bad for the market. This country is an important part of an entire ecosystem having several exchanges between the main and largest in the world.


https://www.coindesk.com/south-korea-crypto-exchange-coinbit-seized-allegations-fraud-wash-trading

Maybe there are investors that tipped the police to do this raid. Because if you are an investor and lost millions, what are you gonna do? Of course, as much as possible you want to recover it from the individuals or team involved and if your action is futile, you will go to the authorities. Because the authorities will not have an idea of what's happening if no one will give them the situation at hand. So kudos to their police, because they are really doing their job and not influenced by any corruption. Bithumb is really known SK crypto exchange. So this move, is really welcome to the community and will serve as a warning to other crypto exchanges located in their country to avoid trade manipulation and other illegal activities.

[Oasisman]

~snip~

Now, I wonder why they raided by the police. I thought that bithumb is trusted ande safe haven cryptocurrency exchange but all of my expectation was removed by their performance. It just affect the momentum of every coins in the market. Now, that one of the largest crypto exchange was alleged to be fraud. They might lose some of their traders and I think it will really affect the current condition of market. If bithumb was found guilty, then all of traders in bithumb might hop to other exchange. I don`t know why does a catalyst always exist when the market is having a greenish days.

Well, that's the reality about "never store cryptos in the exchanges" because even the most reliable and trusted exchange can turn into an untrusted exchange in an instant once their bad deeds got exposed. Just like this as the major example.
So, traders and investors jumped out of that ship, withdraw and sold everything they have in that exchange (panic) because of this news, thus this for sure is one of the major reasons why Btc crashed 5% after hitting $12,000.

[Baofeng]

What now? People will withdraw funds from Bithumb, this mass movement of funds will definitely cause little panic and price would go down again. True?

Waiting for Bithumb answer. I expect they will refute the act of police raid. Like Binance did last year, when there were news about police in their office in Shanghai.

Not sure if the funds are going to be on-hold while investigations are rolling, so it's early to speculate wherein this news is the real cause of the sudden down trend, or maybe someone took advantage of the news to drive the price down to easily scope cheap bitcoin.

Anyhow, let's see, we are in a sort of mini bull run and I don't think that any news will have a long term effect in the market. Maybe next week we will see that we have bounce back again and nearing $11,800-$12k, I remain optimistic.

[ultrloa]

What now? People will withdraw funds from Bithumb, this mass movement of funds will definitely cause little panic and price would go down again. True?

Waiting for Bithumb answer. I expect they will refute the act of police raid. Like Binance did last year, when there were news about police in their office in Shanghai.

Not sure if the funds are going to be on-hold while investigations are rolling, so it's early to speculate wherein this news is the real cause of the sudden down trend, or maybe someone took advantage of the news to drive the price down to easily scope cheap bitcoin.

Anyhow, let's see, we are in a sort of mini bull run and I don't think that any news will have a long term effect in the market. Maybe next week we will see that we have bounce back again and nearing $11,800-$12k, I remain optimistic.

Well we should not give any relation regarding on reason of dumps or either any of it regarding on situation since I think is normal happening especially if there's illegal things will happen and I don't think it will affect on certain things since there's no massive selling will happen and for sure the trader there will go on other exchange and do their trades again.

[Sanugarid]

~snip~

Now, I wonder why they raided by the police. I thought that bithumb is trusted ande safe haven cryptocurrency exchange but all of my expectation was removed by their performance. It just affect the momentum of every coins in the market. Now, that one of the largest crypto exchange was alleged to be fraud. They might lose some of their traders and I think it will really affect the current condition of market. If bithumb was found guilty, then all of traders in bithumb might hop to other exchange. I don`t know why does a catalyst always exist when the market is having a greenish days.

Well, that's the reality about "never store cryptos in the exchanges" because even the most reliable and trusted exchange can turn into an untrusted exchange in an instant once their bad deeds got exposed. Just like this as the major example.

Main reason why I don't let my asset sleep in an exchange is because of this, one day there will be hacker or the exchange itself that will click this alarm button for everyone. It doesn't matter how good the rating of the exchange is, how popular it is, as there is a bad deed there will be more of a incident like this, the root is the money. But I don't wanna blame the entire Bithumb, there are employees out there who is just doing their jobs.

So, traders and investors jumped out of that ship, withdraw and sold everything they have in that exchange (panic) because of this news, thus this for sure is one of the major reasons why Btc crashed 5% after hitting $12,000.

Hmmm. This might be one of the reason why it crashed, but you know I think people are just waiting for bitcoin to reach $12K before pulling out. We don't really know, this is why I love bitcoin  

[Questat]

If this incident was indeed true then I'm afraid, Bithumb will suffer a major blow to its credibility and it would be good that they should settle it at once

This will be a huge blow for the Bithumb, even if they prove this allegation false, this will affect their credibility as cryptocurrency exchange. I bet people now on bithumb is moving out, this is what most of people usually do when their platform gets into this kind of situation. Too bad for Bithumb.

On the other hand, we can also see this giving a positive effect on their reputation since it was proven false and I believe that's how crypto people look at a platform, they trust the one which proven to be legit. You might look at what happen to Binance, they got hacked, but does it affect their reputation negatively? No, in fact their trading volume has increase significantly.

[piebeyb]

Well, there you have it, the reason why the market went down today:


https://bitcoinity.org/markets/bitstamp/USD

At least this whole thing has nothing to do with major cryptos like BTC or ETH but rather a sketchy token. The drop in the btc price was probably caused by korean panic sellers shitting bricks after reading the headlines    cheap coins before we test 12k again? decent short-term profits =P

i don't think the market is down at the moment because of the news coming from korea, i am not sure the news can beat a trend, maybe we will test it again $ 12k, people are taking the opportunity to buy it cheap, quick profits, but by the way bitcoinity.org i think already closed, apparently it can still be accessed

[Darker45]

This is a major blow to cryptocurrency trading in South Korea. Bithumb is the country's largest crypto exchange and even making it to the top ten cryptocurrency exchange in the world in terms of 24-hour trading volume.

Fake volume, that is.
All of them were pumping up their numbers like there was no tomorrow.

Well, I agree, of course. They're all guilty of the same crime, although in varying degrees. And I suppose, in all fairness, Bithumb is not comparable with P2PB2B's very obvious bloated trading volume due to wash trading.

We got rid of two scammy exchanges that were manipulating volume and trades, what's the bad news in it?

That is good news, of course, although if the authorities will order all exchanges involved in volume and trade manipulations to cease and desist operations, we might end up with no exchanges at all. Well, I'm not sure if this is good or bad.

[so98nn]

[...]
For me, this is good news, although it is also sad news at the same time. This is a statement that crypto companies have to shape up.

This is the main reason why crypto market is seen with suspicion eye sight and many governments are banning the crypto to protect their traditional assets. Now, if they have stolen the money of their investors then surely it is gonna be hidden somewhere as black money and thus pulling the untiled taxes, people's money and much more.

This is very bad in terms of future outlook of government and even people who have lost the money through such act.

First we used to fear out due to fraud exchangers which are not in top 10 list. Now, here we are even the world's best exchangers are topping the house!

[Yogee]

Too bad but at least we know authorities in South Korea are serious in going after illicit activities of these exchanges.

.....
Now, I wonder why they raided by the police. I thought that bithumb is trusted ande safe haven cryptocurrency exchange but all of my expectation was removed by their performance.

Did you just learned about Bithumb in 2020? Lucius clearly pointed out the reasons why it shouldn't be trusted. One more thing, cryptocurrency exchanges are not safe havens. I'm sure you know the old adage "not your keys, not your coins".

.... The issues steams from 2018, so I don't know why it took them 2 years though.

Police can't just barge in upon mere suspicion can they? At least they need to gather evidence to have a strong case against the exchange execs and that takes time too.

[Lorence.xD]

Too bad but at least we know authorities in South Korea are serious in going after illicit activities of these exchanges.

When the post said seizure in South Korea, I know fo a fact that there is nothing to be worried about, authorities are very hard when it comes to fraud in South Korea.

[Yogee]

Too bad but at least we know authorities in South Korea are serious in going after illicit activities of these exchanges.

When the post said seizure in South Korea, I know fo a fact that there is nothing to be worried about, authorities are very hard when it comes to fraud in South Korea.

When you have funds in there, that is something to be worried about  . It could be locked in there until the case is over. Nobody wants their funds to stuck while they could made profitable trades using it. News like this affects the market price  somehow. If you're late for the news, you will be left with a negative portfolio.

[EdenHazard]

Well, there you have it, the reason why the market went down today:


https://bitcoinity.org/markets/bitstamp/USD

At least this whole thing has nothing to do with major cryptos like BTC or ETH but rather a sketchy token. The drop in the btc price was probably caused by korean panic sellers shitting bricks after reading the headlines    cheap coins before we test 12k again? decent short-term profits =P

i don't think the market is down at the moment because of the news coming from korea, i am not sure the news can beat a trend, maybe we will test it again $ 12k, people are taking the opportunity to buy it cheap, quick profits, but by the way bitcoinity.org i think already closed, apparently it can still be accessed

I wouldn't say it has not any effect for sure there is.

But other than that it's just a natural response on how holders overreacting,  this might temporary, no need to worry bout this .
Besides that the -3% to -10% daily still considered as an organic movement, market swing with the uncertainty so far.
Every trader aware about this and some has predicted that the support is being tested at $11,000 thing will be getting bad when it breaks $10,000.

However i can only see that the source come from cointelegraph & coindesk only? Any other reliable sources to dig in?

[slaman29]

This would be really bad news for the SK industry. Bithumb was supposed to be the biggest and the best, also first to get legal with the crypto license, so this will prove critics' words that regulations is not enough as crypto exchanges are crooks. I suppose this is what caused the crash over the last 24 hours?

[TravelMug]

This would be really bad news for the SK industry. Bithumb was supposed to be the biggest and the best, also first to get legal with the crypto license, so this will prove critics' words that regulations is not enough as crypto exchanges are crooks. I suppose this is what caused the crash over the last 24 hours?

I'm not sure if the news causes the 'flash crash' that we have seen. But it will have a massive effect for our South Korean crypto enthusiast that's for sure. It's their top exchanges for many years now and this news really change the complexion on how they are going to look at exchanges again.

And South Korean is turning the heat up with their local exchanges investigations. Coinbit was first, we didn't even see the market nudge. And yeah, probably critics will try to spin this news and put crypto a bad name again.

[bitsurfer2014]

If this incident was indeed true then I'm afraid, Bithumb will suffer a major blow to its credibility and it would be good that they should settle it at once

This will be a huge blow for the Bithumb, even if they prove this allegation false, this will affect their credibility as cryptocurrency exchange. I bet people now on bithumb is moving out, this is what most of people usually do when their platform gets into this kind of situation. Too bad for Bithumb.

The negative publicity itself would do some kind of damage to the company and  could also have side effects to the morale of some South Korean crypto enthusiasts.

Aside from that, I think some of its customers would take precaution into putting funds on that exchange or worst, they would stay away from it thinking that there is a big possibility that their accounts will be frozen or would be jeopardized should they were found guilty and authorities act accordingly like stopping the exchange's operation.

[Leviathan.007]

After this negative fundamental news we can nearly say the market falling down. And this will make a chance for the people to buy bitcoin at lower prices. According to what we saw before on the crypto market, these negative fundamental news will temporary effect the price and market will do some emotional movements. However, as we saw before, after just a few day and stability of the price, we will see the market on the good and even better situations once again.

[LogitechMouse]

Am I the only one seeing this news as a good thing??
If you are an investor then this is a good news since the market is affected by this news causing the prices to go down or this isn't the one affected Bitcoin and other coins' price.

Perfect time to accumulate more Bitcoin rather than buying it near the $12,000. Feel sad for the investors though since Bithumb is one of the largest crypto exchanges right now. I'm curious what will happen to the exchange right now and how this news will affect their reputation to their users.

[Reatim]

This would be really bad news for the SK industry. Bithumb was supposed to be the biggest and the best, also first to get legal with the crypto license, so this will prove critics' words that regulations is not enough as crypto exchanges are crooks. I suppose this is what caused the crash over the last 24 hours?

but like what already happen they have violation thats why Government needs to implement rules,it is sudden because South Korea is starting their Good move into crypto currency and for sure that Cryptonains from thic Country will be Alarmed yet learn something here.
Because The Korean government is in the top of everything to seize everything that disobey the laws.

Too bad but at least we know authorities in South Korea are serious in going after illicit activities of these exchanges.

When the post said seizure in South Korea, I know fo a fact that there is nothing to be worried about, authorities are very hard when it comes to fraud in South Korea.

Yet the effect for the Crypto users is there.
Because more than everything they are the one that will be affected in This imagine the First Exchange that has been rewarded of legality is under seize now?
thats very bad start.

[dothebeats]

Bithumb is one of those exchanges that you don't know if they're reporting their stats accurately or not.

They are also one of the few exchanges during the 2017 bull run that posted more than $20k due to a number of users doing wash trading until everything blew up. During those days, wash trading is already an illegal activity in the crypto market and exchanges are already quick to identify and ban accounts that are doing such activity (though let's admit it, not all of those traders are caught or have their accounts banned due to the heat of the action during the bull run.)

Honestly this is a good news knowing that some form of illegal activity has already been unearthed and the ones responsible are already being questioned. In order for the scene to prosper, you must eliminate established networks allowing the proliferation of such activities. In this way, you can ensure a safe environment to all investors and normal users alike, though it sucks to be those investors that never saw anything in return for their investments.

[bitsurfer2014]

Honestly this is a good news knowing that some form of illegal activity has already been unearthed and the ones responsible are already being questioned.

Yes, in the lighter side, perhaps it could deter some other exchanges to do the same in the future supposing Bithumb had really done that malicious act and are guilty about it.

[BlackFor3st]

Their move is not smart at all knowing that they can be jailed to what they have done. If they want to continue their operations they should have avoided that to happen but I am not surprised also as we are talking about big money here which is $25 million.

I wonder if they are having a problem in listing the BXA or they just decided to run the money which lead to theie seized. This will surely create a big impact to the crypto industry in South Korea.

[wiss19]

Big cryptocurrency companies should always be careful and avoid doing things that will rub their names on the mud.
A cryptocurrency as big as that , that knows a lot of people in that country and also from around the world trust and rely on them shouldn’t be messing around like this.

Someone pointed out that this might be what caused the decrease in Bitcoin and some other cryptocurrencies because some people would have sold their coins immediately they saw the headline. The government don’t joke when it comes to matters like this, and if they don’t find ways to settle the problem, they wouldn’t like what follows, they are likely to be running out of business.

[thesmallgod]

If this is true, then all I can say is that Bithumb is very greedy. You have build up such a reputation to be the largest crypto exchange in south Korea so if you offer a token as part of the project that was not successful, then they should have returned back investors' money. This is the smartest thing to do and it is being done by some sincere ICO dev in the past. Now they should be ready for the negativity attached to this and the effect on the present and future plans

[TopTort777]

Maybe next week we will see that we have bounce back again and nearing $11,800-$12k, I remain optimistic.

Opposite thing happened - we continued to go down. I’m not sure that this drop was caused by this police visit, but dont see any other reasonable explanation. I can not call myself an expert, but I predict that for next several weeks will try to get back to $11k level or try to touch $11.5k

[rexxarofmoknathal]

If this incident was indeed true then I'm afraid, Bithumb will suffer a major blow to its credibility and it would be good that they should settle it at once

because South Korea's law enforcement and justice system could be harsh and the Government take it seriously especially on fraud and corruption

charges, evident of which are those their past Presidents were indicted and sentenced to several years in jail. Imho.

Absolutely, I'm with you. If this is really legit then not only this news will be a hard blow to the exchange but to the rest of the crypto currency in one way or another. It would at least cause loss of investors' confidence and not to mention the bad press attraction around the world of crypto.

On the other hand, the morale of the story is that you should only entrust big enough exchanges which if they try to pull something dirty you can at least be in a somewhat better position to recover your loss/es.

[rdbase]

So does this seizure mean that they will have to shut down their operation and mining facilities indefinitely?
This does not bode well for bitcoin in the slightest because they hold alot of their customer's cryptocurrenies on their exchange as well.

[TedMosby]

so, is this news the reason for the red market?
Korean market is a big crypto investor pool.
Bithumb also is one of the big and well-known crypto exchanges.
With that amount of money, it can lead to a bad impression for mass adoption in Korea.

[rdbase]

It was the second raid on a korean exchange within a few months apart from each other.
"In late August, the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency reportedly raided and seized the operations of Coinbit, the country’s third-largest cryptocurrency exchange. The exchange is allegedly involved in generating an income of $85 million from market manipulation."

These tokens seem to be nothing but trouble towards every cryptocurrency out there. Because they can be used for moving large amounts of money so easily without any trace. Just put all your ethereum or bitcoin into a smart contract for these tokens and there is no way of authorities would know where they came from.
"As reported, the latest checks are purportedly connected with an ongoing police investigation involving Lee Jung Hoon, chairman of board at Bithumb Korea and Bithumb Holdings.
The executive has reportedly been under investigation for alleged economic fraud involving the token known as BXA. The token was purportedly promoted as Bithumb’s native token that eventually turned out to be involved in high scale fraud that caused investor damages of 30 billion won ($25 million)."
source:https://cointelegraph.com/news/seoul-police-reportedly-investigating-korea-s-largest-crypto-exchange-bithumb

I think this is the reason for these seizures from South Korean police because they have seen money laundering going on and have tracked it down to this BXA token as mentioned in the above article.

[pixie85]

so, is this news the reason for the red market?
Korean market is a big crypto investor pool.
Bithumb also is one of the big and well-known crypto exchanges.
With that amount of money, it can lead to a bad impression for mass adoption in Korea.

It's not. I don't get why so many people think that this was the reason.

A Korean exchange with juat 1/4 of Binance's volume crashed the market because it was "seized" but it's still online and trading. If they are processing withdrawals and have not shut down the news is more of a FUD than a real story. Maybe they were charged with something but not shut down.

Here are more legit reasons:
https://cryptonews.net/en/374069/

[Hypnosis00]

It was the second raid on a korean exchange within a few months apart from each other.
"In late August, the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency reportedly raided and seized the operations of Coinbit, the country’s third-largest cryptocurrency exchange. The exchange is allegedly involved in generating an income of $85 million from market manipulation."

These tokens seem to be nothing but trouble towards every cryptocurrency out there. Because they can be used for moving large amounts of money so easily without any trace. Just put all your ethereum or bitcoin into a smart contract for these tokens and there is no way of authorities would know where they came from.
"As reported, the latest checks are purportedly connected with an ongoing police investigation involving Lee Jung Hoon, chairman of board at Bithumb Korea and Bithumb Holdings.
The executive has reportedly been under investigation for alleged economic fraud involving the token known as BXA. The token was purportedly promoted as Bithumb’s native token that eventually turned out to be involved in high scale fraud that caused investor damages of 30 billion won ($25 million)."
source:https://cointelegraph.com/news/seoul-police-reportedly-investigating-korea-s-largest-crypto-exchange-bithumb

I think this is the reason for these seizures from South Korean police because they have seen money laundering going on and have tracked it down to this BXA token as mentioned in the above article.

The Law could somewhat harsh but that is it. The one who violates the law shall be punished and put in jail no matter who you are or you have a lot of money.
It was to find out from the thorough investigation that Bithumb is involved in such illegalities and no wonder why they have to be seized. It is very disappointing to see that some big exchanges been involve in this kind of greediness. Not actually it affects the price but they are destroying the image of crypto.

[nelson4lov]

I just wonder how Bithumb always gets in the news for the wrong reasons. I just wonder why they try to be sketchy in all their dealings. They spend too much time resolving conflicts, handling court orders than providing their services to  their users which isn't cool. Holding an IEO on their exchanges and not going forward to list it seems like something Bithumb will do. It wouldn't take long before they lose most of their users due to the constant bad press about them.

For those who doesn't know, this isn't the reason behind bitcoin's drop to 10400.

[Yogee]

so, is this news the reason for the red market?
Korean market is a big crypto investor pool.
Bithumb also is one of the big and well-known crypto exchanges.
With that amount of money, it can lead to a bad impression for mass adoption in Korea.

It's not. I don't get why so many people think that this was the reason.

A Korean exchange with juat 1/4 of Binance's volume crashed the market because it was "seized" but it's still online and trading. If they are processing withdrawals and have not shut down the news is more of a FUD than a real story. Maybe they were charged with something but not shut down.

Here are more legit reasons:
https://cryptonews.net/en/374069/

The Bithumb raid news is just as legit as the three reasons provided in that article:
- S&P down
- DeFi hype
- Miners selling

The only thing that's 99% accurate there is the miners and traders taking risk and sold their bags. Many traders or speculators understand that bears looks forward to these kind of news to strengthen their position in shorting BTC.

[bitsurfer2014]

On the other hand, the morale of the story is that you should only entrust big enough exchanges which if they try to pull something dirty you can at least be in a somewhat better position to recover your loss/es.

That's a good point! I suppose if that incident came from a little known exchange with low liquidity, there will be a big chance that

customer's funds will be lost, assuming that exchange can't afford to compensate for the hefty fines that will be imposed by the

Government and not to mention its legal liabilities once they lost that case or in worst case, could even lead them to file for bankruptcy. Imho.

[Finxflo(FXF)]

If this incident was indeed true then I'm afraid, Bithumb will suffer a major blow to its credibility and it would be good that they should settle it at once

because South Korea's law enforcement and justice system could be harsh and the Government take it seriously especially on fraud and corruption

charges, evident of which are those their past Presidents were indicted and sentenced to several years in jail. Imho.

If true it will be necessary to deal with them harshly so that  users of cryptocurrency exchanges will have more confidence in cryptocurrency exchanges.It also highlights the importance of regulation,and the importance of only trading with companies that are registered in a legitimate and responsible legal jurisdiction. South Korea as with Singapore dont play that shit!

[coolcoinz]

Bithumb is still trading, so IMO it's not the exchange that was seized. If you know how these raids are done, I'll explain it to you.
The police enters the office with a warrant and asks for documentation regarding certain activity. They want invoices, bank account numbers, books in general and often electronic documentation like hard drives. These are then analysed and processed for the prosecutor's office (if proof is found of illegal activity). This doesn't mean the end of the company.

[hatshepsut93]

I don't know if that is indeed the cause but if so, the market is pretty f!
We got rid of two scammy exchanges that were manipulating volume and trades, what's the bad news in it?

This just shows that the market isn't always rational, or what we think is rational is not what other market participants think. Maybe this time traders in that region got scared that police will come after them and will seize their coins, so they decided to quit this market for now.

[Fredomago]

I just wonder how Bithumb always gets in the news for the wrong reasons. I just wonder why they try to be sketchy in all their dealings. They spend too much time resolving conflicts, handling court orders than providing their services to  their users which isn't cool. Holding an IEO on their exchanges and not going forward to list it seems like something Bithumb will do. It wouldn't take long before they lose most of their users due to the constant bad press about them.

For those who doesn't know, this isn't the reason behind bitcoin's drop to 10400.

Not at all, but can be used by fat whales to shake again the market, we all know that if there's incidents like this most of those bagholders are capable of riding with the sentiments bringing the value of bitcoin and other alternative coins to fall down.
It should not be followed to avoid losing your money, this case is for the exchange and there are many other options that traders can use to continue dealing with their participation to this market.

[ufaiz50]

It's quite strange to see when the crypto market suddenly drops, even though it hasn't been an end week and almost all coins are competing to turn red. I was also surprised after getting this news from my friend, the local bithumb exchanger is not very influential, it is likely that the market will return after further statements regarding this incident. Bad the IEO, I wonder how the continuation of this investment and the demands of the reporter, plus the chairman of bithumb charges of escaping property, it will take a long time.