Bithumb Exchange Owns More Assets Than its Customers

Leading South Korean exchange Bithumb’s own holdings are higher than the sum total of its customer holdings, per a due diligence report.

According to Sports Seoul, the report was part of a recent audit completed by Seoul-based auditor Jungin Accounting. The auditor found that the sum total of both Bithumb’s own fiat (KRW) and crypto holdings are higher than the cumulative customer assets held on the platform as of June 30. However, the exact numbers have not been revealed.

The auditor also stated that Bithumb was keeping its own funds in bank accounts separate from customer funds at Nonghyeop (NH Bank).

Recently passed crypto-specific legal amendments require that exchanges use separate accounting for their own funds and client assets – although these do not come into force until next year.

The newly introduced rules also stipulate that exchanges must hold assets worth an equivalent of their customer-held funds – in order to mitigate against possible hacks.

The report also made note of the fact that Bithumb currently offers trading pairs in 104 tokens, and had an average of 3.8 million monthly users in the period from April to June this year.

The new amendment promulgates in March 2021, and exchanges have been granted an additional six-month grace period. However, market leaders such as Bithumb, as well as its closest rivals Upbit, Coinone, Korbit and Gopax, have been attempting to make a public display of their advanced compliance measures ahead of the legal change.

Trading volume on Bithumb:

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