Altcoin Delisting Claims Some Surprising Casualties in South Korea

Some of South Korea’s leading crypto exchanges have apparently begun coin purges for low-volume tokens – but there could be a catch for the exchanges and the South Korean cryptocurrency industry as a whole, as a number of delisted tokens are Kakao Klaytn partners.

Per a report from South Korean media outlet News Tomato, the purges are taking place at the country’s “big four” crypto exchanges: Bithumb, Upbit, Coinone and Korbit.

As previously reported, in the second half of last year all four exchanges independently declared they would be setting up token review committees in an effort to delist underperforming coins from their platforms, which many critics have previously called “bloated.”

But there are signs that the delistings drive is set to intensify in the first half of 2020.

The media outlet says that industry sources state that both Bithumb and Coinone have decided to delist three tokens apiece, while Korbit has also removed three tokens since it established its token reviews platform late last year.

News Tomato quotes an anonymous industry insider as stating,

“With the market still suffering, the number of projects that end up getting delisted may increase rapidly due to low trade volume figures. Delisting is now unavoidable in many cases.”

Another unnamed insider criticized the move, stating that exchanges are “carrying out excessive delisting policies without considering the unique characteristics of the blockchain industry.”

An unnamed official at one of the big four exchanges stated, however,

“Project operators are responsible for liquidity management. A lack of liquidity often means things aren’t going well for a token.”

The report points out that the Contents Protocol (CPT) coin and Cosmo Coin (COSM), both of which have been delisted by Coinone, stand out. Both are run by relatively big-name players and Klatyn partners, and the latter’s operator has also partnered with Samsung, which lists its dapp (decentralized app) on its mobile blockchain wallet.

Klaytn has been experiencing massive growth since its launch last year. The blockchain network is backed by Kakao, the operator of the 50 million+ user chat app KakaoTalk and one of the biggest internet companies in the country.

Cosmo Coin was created by Comsochain, maker of one of the world’s most popular dapps, while the CPT token is the brainchild of Watcha, which has also won Kakao funding, and has been dubbed by the media as “the South Korean Netflix.”