Police reportedly seize South Korea's largest crypto exchange Bithumb

[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.

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[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.