Huobi purchased Bithumb exchange

[notblox1]

According to news from Korea, Huobi purchased Bithumb exchange for $500 millions after competing with Binance who offered $400 millions.
Bithumb was founded in 2014, but maybe you heard about them because they got hacked many times, and on September 2, Bithumb was also raided by Seoul Metropolitan Police.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bithumb

Source news from Korea:
https://twitter.com/WuBlockchain/status/1328657098603855874
https://www.thebell.co.kr/free/content/ArticleView.asp?key=202011160855509340102888&lcode=00

[The Sceptical Chymist]

Bithumb was founded in 2014, but maybe you heard about them because they got hacked many times, and on September 2, Bithumb was also raided by Seoul Metropolitan Police.

Yeah, I recall the latter raid.

I have no feeling about this either way, because I'm expecting there to be a lot of consolidation among the exchanges all over the world.  There's just no room for all of these little ones that exist--the ones most likely to fake their trading volume. 

Think about how many stock brokerages there are available if you want to trade stocks.  In the US, there are a few but there aren't hundreds.  In cryptoland, I don't know how many exchanges exist, but I'm pretty sure the number is in the thousands.  So in the coming years, I'm expecting some of the bigger fish to gobble up the little ones.  Binance will probably be one of the gobblers, but I'm not sure what other exchanges have enough cash or credit to acquire smaller exchanges. 

Anyway, it'll be interesting to see what happens.  Hopefully somebody buys Yobit and transforms it into something respectable--or just acquires their customers and ditches the Yobit brand altogether.

[notblox1]

In cryptoland, I don't know how many exchanges exist, but I'm pretty sure the number is in the thousands.

Looking at data from Coingecko, Coinmarketcap and few other websites, I think there are currently around 400 existing active exchanges at the moment, but you are correct when you say that many of them have fake volume, and they are doing wash trading.

Most volume is done on first 20 exchanges with top volume, and real traffic and visitors are indicator how many people are using this exchanges.
According to Coingecko and SimilarWeb, Binance has 28,230,000 visits, and Huobi for example 3,472,271 visits with Bithumb 4,286,000 reporting even more.

[gentlemand]

So one untrustworthy exchange buys another. I wonder whether that adds up to a critical mass of dodginess or they somehow cancel each other out. I also wonder whether the Korean market will ever open up or it remains a whacky outpost where Bitcoin Gold has more volume than Bitcoin on occasion.

[exstasie]

Bithumb was founded in 2014, but maybe you heard about them because they got hacked many times, and on September 2, Bithumb was also raided by Seoul Metropolitan Police.

Yeah, I recall the latter raid.

I have no feeling about this either way, because I'm expecting there to be a lot of consolidation among the exchanges all over the world.  There's just no room for all of these little ones that exist--the ones most likely to fake their trading volume.

I get what you're saying, but Bithumb is Korea's biggest exchange, despite the fake volume scandals. Coingecko still ranks them at #12 globally.

My theory is this is very similar to the Poloniex buyout by Circle. I remember one of the conditions for Circle's acquisition was that Poloniex would be given a free pass by US regulators for past violations. I don't believe many details have ever come out about the Bithumb raid and subsequent legal fallout. It's only been a couple months after all. Now that I see they've been receiving offers from the largest exchanges to buy them out, it's obvious to me that the legal case against Bithumb provoked them into soliciting the offers. It's a win-win situation: Bithumb's executives will probably walk away rich and unscathed legally, and Huobi (or whatever other exchange conglomerate that might have bought them out) consolidates a big chunk of global market share.

Hopefully somebody buys Yobit and transforms it into something respectable

LOL. That'll be the day.

[Darker45]

I think this news is misleading. Purchased means it already took place. Did the purchase already happen? Is Bithumb now transferred and owned by Huobi?

I think it has yet to happen. This is still a plan until now, although, as indicated by the link in the OP, it looks like Huobi has the highest offer. But until and unless the money has actually changed hands, Bithumb is still not purchased by Huobi. It seems it will still take some time and Bithumb might still possibly end up into the hands of another company.

Anyway, Bithumb is better off sold to another exchange with its current reputation and status, but it would be better if it is not acquired by the likes of Huobi or Binance but by another South Korean company.

[Yogee]

Like what Darker45 said, it isn't a done deal yet.

This is another tweet posted by the same source https://twitter.com/WuBlockchain/status/1328657564532236289

However, the information about bribery in the article is suspected of malicious attacks. Wu also learned that LiLin is currently in a safe state. The only certain fact is that Huobi may indeed compete with Binance on Bithumb, but it was suspended due to investigation.

Looking for other sources written in the last 24 hours since I can't read Korean [from Bell article] and all I can was "Huobi reportedly plans to buy Bithumb"
https://decrypt.co/48516/crypto-exchange-huobi-reportedly-wants-to-buy-bithumb

Korean market must be so big that these two are willing to splash those money and take on all the legal hurdles from Bithumb's pending cases to registrations and merging.

......
I have no feeling about this either way, because I'm expecting there to be a lot of consolidation among the exchanges all over the world.  There's just no room for all of these little ones that exist--the ones most likely to fake their trading volume.

I get what you're saying, but Bithumb is Korea's biggest exchange, despite the fake volume scandals. Coingecko still ranks them at #12 globally.

Exactly. They also have two other "sub" exchanges Bithumb Global and Bithumb Singapore.

.... where Bitcoin Gold has more volume than Bitcoin on occasion.

[Husires]

Are they planning to spend a little money on security? both platforms have a reputation and a history of hackng and that they are under one administration, this means that more protection is necessary.

Going to the South Korean market will be beneficial and it is good to see a few strong central platforms are better than many that have fake trading volumes.

[pugman]

That is pretty huge for the South Korean crypto market, the volume there is insaneee and its gonna affect things over there for sure. Who knows, Huobi might wanna overtake Binance as the top exchange worldwide, and maybe thats why Huobi purchased such a big exchange?

Without the support of bithumb, Huobi has almost 13 Mil daily volume, second after Binance with 17 mil. SO bithumb is definitely gonna spice things up, volume wise, and also Huobi has offices all over Singapore, SK, Japan and US. Pretty interesting scenario, would love to see which direction Huobi is headed towards.

[gentlemand]

That is pretty huge for the South Korean crypto market, the volume there is insaneee and its gonna affect things over there for sure. Who knows, Huobi might wanna overtake Binance as the top exchange worldwide, and maybe thats why Huobi purchased such a big exchange?

South Korea had zero fee exchanges for quite some time just as China did back in the day so that volume is meaningless. And Korea is a closed market so it lives in its own little world. It'll no doubt make them some money. It's not going to be world changing as the world can't get to it.