Bithumb, the largest cryptocurrency exchange in South Korea, was reportedly raided for the third time, by Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency’s Intelligent Crime Investigation Unit.

Police reportedly seized a number of shares in Bithumb Holdings. Despite this, the holdings belongs to Bithumb Korea Director Kim Byung-Geon. In contrast, the seizure action granted by the Seoul Central District Court on September 14.

Hence, the investigation was after it allegedly sold its native BXA tokens for over 30 billion won ($25 million). Although, the sale is based on a former takeover deal with the Bithumb Korea Group. 

As per the Blockchain Transparency Institute (BTI) report, Bithumb was ranked fourth in the world. Furthermore, second in Korea based on the daily trade volume. According to Coingecko, the exchange supports 108 cryptocurrencies and 109 trading pairs. Despite, with a 24-hour trading volume of $235 million, at the time of writing.

At the beginning of September, the trading volume of Bithumb was over 600 million. Currently, the trading volume reduced to 250 million.

The exchange’s initial raid happened on September 2, and the second raid on September 7. Samjong KPMG, beginning of this month completed a letter of intent (LOI). By the way, explaining that it planned to sell its own stake in Bithumb Holdings.

Likewise, last month South Korean cryptocurrency exchange Coinbit was seized by police. For allegedly making false transactions to obtain 100 billion won ($84m). 

Fisco representatives filed a complaint on Binance in the Northern California District Court for the stolen funds from Zaif seeking the return of over $9 million.

In the 2018 hack, Fisco, the Japanese exchange has lost nearly $60 million worth of crypto. This includes some units of Bitcoin (5966), Bitcoin Cash, and Mona coin is Japan’s first native cryptocurrency.

However, the hackers sent 1,451 bitcoin to an address that belongs to Binance. Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange. The total bitcoin worth was $9.4 million at that time. Zaif is the name of exchange during the hack.

Fisco explains that Binance uses Amazon Web Services (AWS). AWS is to host the exchange’s servers. It has the ability to select whichever AWS data center for its operations. Since most of the infrastructure is in California the jurisdiction was in Northern California District Court.

The laundering happened due to Binance’s allegedly lax know-your-customer (KYC), and anti-money laundering (AML) protocols. These do not measure up to the industry standards. 

Fisco said,

“Binance failed to implement security measures that were standard throughout the industry.”

Either intentionally or negligently Binance did not stop the transfers. Even though it had the chance to do it. Fisco demands Binance to pay for its loss of the laundered funds. Zaif, and its customers suffered financial losses as a result of Binance’s lack of action.

Similarly, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) found that Binance has weaker regulation. This has been singled out by them for often moving to avoid stronger regulatory oversight.

Binance has involved in a series of recent class-action lawsuits. One among them was the class-action lawsuit against the exchange was filed in the Southern District of New York. Recently, Binance has also delisted the exchange’s own native token BNB.

Crypto exchange Binance Uganda announced that it will delist its native token Binance Coin (BNB) for not meeting the trading standards. 

Binance Uganda, an East African crypto exchange that provides the most powerful fiat-to-crypto trading platform. Meanwhile, BNB is presently the 8th largest cryptocurrency with a total market capitalization of $3.4 billion, according to Coinmarketcap. 

As per the announcement, Binance Coin (BNB) doesn’t meet the high-level trading standard. This resulted in the delisting of BNB from its exchange. The said trading standard includes the trading volume and assets’ liquidity.

In the announcement, Binance said,

“Unfortunately, when this trading standard is not met, their performance is subject to review and may result in the delisting of the coin or token. Based on our most recent reviews, we have decided to delist and cease trading on all trading pairs for the following token at 10:00AM EAT 2020/09/17. Binance Coin (BNB)”

Binance Uganda will stop all BNB deposits on Sept. 10. They will continue with their withdrawal operations till Nov. 6. By September 17, The trading pair BNB/UGX will be officially removed.

Initially, the total supply of BNB was 200 million coins. Due to the continuous coin burn, the supply has been gradually decreasing. As per the recent report, BNB is considered to be undervalued, while Binance leads its way. 

Eterbase, a European premier digital asset exchange in Slovakia. It has reported that hackers have stolen around 1.6 million from the exchange hot wallet.

In addition, Eterbase is one of the top crypto exchanges providing top-class services to its users. In contrast, as per Coinmarketcap data, the current trading volume is around 2 million.

Unfortunately, there was a hack on the Eterbase exchange for the first time.

Hack Details:

Total Amount Stolen: 1.6 MILLION.

Cryptocurrency Stolen: BITCOIN, ETHEREUM, XRP, TEZOS, ALGORAND, and TRON.

Hot Wallet hack date: 07-08-2020 (Monday-Midnight).

Moreover, the Eterbase team has officially announced, and confirmed the hack on Telegram. Furthermore, the team has mentioned, “Due to ongoing investigation more details cannot be announced currently.”

Official Announcement Telegram Channel of Eterbase

Moreover, the exchange took immediate action after the hack. However, it suspends trading, and also EU trading till September 10.

At last instance, NewsCrypto team tried to reach the exchange to gather information. Regarding their steps in the future. However, the team did not get any response yet from Eterbase exchange.

Source: CoinDesk

Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency’s Intelligent Crime Investigation Unit raided Bithumb for the second time in connection to the BXA token fraud allegations against its Chairman.

Bithumb is the largest crypto asset exchange in South Korea. It has over 8 million registered users. One million mobile app users and the current overall volume has exceeded $1 trillion.

According to the local Seoul Shinman publication, the Seoul Police entered Bithumb’s headquarters and seized evidence relating to a $25 million fraud investigation linked to the sale of BXA token.

The investors in these tokens faced losses as the exchange did not list them on its platform for trading. In this raid authorities target the offices relating to Bithumb Holdings, the parent company of Bithumb Korea, which operates the crypto exchange platform.

Bithumb’s Chairman Lee Jung-hoon, accused of illicitly moving funds overseas. The first raid happened last week for the same case. 

Despite the investigations, South Korea’s largest exchange keeps holding its position on the market. It has also got global reach and impressive influence in the crypto space.

Bithumb has recently launched its smart token BTCS, along with ETHS, XRPS, LTCS, BCHS, BSVS, and COMPS.

As per tokenmarketcap data, the crypto exchange is still the ninth-largest crypto exchange worldwide. The reported daily trading volume accounts for about $250 million at the time of publishing, down around 16.58 % over the past 24 hours.

Analysis has illustrated that Binance’s native token, Binance Coin (BNB) is undervalued overall while Binance, the largest spot cryptocurrency exchange in the world still leads its way.

BNB initially issued as an ERC-20 token on the Ethereum platform. The initial total supply of BNB was 200 million coins, but due to the continuous coin burn, the supply is gradually decreasing.

Binance has conducted 12 token burns till now. The recent burn, the biggest burn ever recorded and has taken away about $60.5 million worth of BNB.

This burn mentions trading activity across Binance spot, margin, and futures exchanges, various portfolio projects, and ecosystem partners that use BNB.

BNB Still Undervalued

As data from Coinmarketcap, BNB is presently the 8th largest cryptocurrency. with a total market capitalization of $3.2 billion. In the mid-February BNB price surged to $26, with gains of around 100% since the beginning of the year. Then the price dropped to around $9.

On September 2, the BNB price spiked to $25 but less than the February price increase. Once again the price started to drop. In the last 24 hours, BNB is at $22.42 with a trading volume of over $622 million. The price has risen by 2.79%.

Binance Stays on Top

In Q1 of 2020, Binance offers 218 tokens and 616 trading pairs. Binance Savings products offered for 30 tokens, whereas Binance Staking supports 23 tokens. The exchange grows the Binance Angels roster to 200+ international angels.

Binance Futures offers 32 perpetual contracts, along with two Binance Quarterly Futures contracts. Binance DEX has 132 trading pairs.

Binance’s CEO, Changpeng Zhao, became the wealthiest Bitcoin Billionaire in 2020 with the estimated net worth of $2.6 billion. In a tweet, it was mentioned that Zhao tops 6 Bitcoin Billionaires in Hurun global rich list 2020.

Moreover, Binance has also gained a wide range of users which is over 2.4 million on their social media pages. It has also continued to build more features, fiat gateways, new supporting languages, etc.

Bithumb, the largest cryptocurrency exchange in South Korea. It reportedly raided by Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency’s Intelligent Crime Investigation Unit, for a $25 million token sale on its platform.

As per the report, the raid was connected to the Chairman of the Board at Bithumb Korea and Bithumb Holdings Lee Jung Hoon. Loon accused of fraud and illicitly sending funds overseas.

Bithumb reported conducting the token sale for BXA. The token reportedly promoted as the Bithumb’s native token which involved large range fraud causing the investors with the damage of 30 billion won ($25 million).

Over 300 participants joined in the token sale lost millions.

Bithumb transaction fee costs around 30% of the transaction amount. However, users reached the exchange’s customer support to clarify the high transaction fees.

Bithumb customer support replied stating,

“The Ethereum network is currently congested, which will result in very high fees. You can withdraw by onmi or trc 20”

Moreover, Bithumb is the ninth-largest crypto exchange by average daily trading volume globally. As per Tokenmarketcap, the exchange has a 24h trading volume that stood at over $365 million.

South Korean crypto exchange Coinbit also seized by police last week for making a false transaction to obtain 100 billion won (84 million). While South Korea continues to break crypto laws, there is a chance of more attacks like these could follow.

South Korea cryptocurrency exchange Coinbit seized by police for allegedly making false transactions to obtain 100 billion won ($84m).

As per the report from Seoul Shinmun, South Korea’s oldest newspaper, police accused Coinbit Owner Choi Mo and other managers for handling multiple accounts, controlling cryptocurrency prices, and raising transaction volume. 

Authorities disclosed that the exchange has divided into two functional accounts. The first account consists of major cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Ripple (XRP), and Tether (USDT). Here using ghost accounts the trading was done to inflate the trading volumes.

The second account contains only smaller crypto and altcoins, wherein crypto transactions with other exchanges were stopped, enabling Choi and his team to control the supply. With this strategy, they were able to directly analyze the market margin by trading large amounts of coins at certain times.

The report findings were withheld to the public until the police completed their investigation. As of press time, Coinbit declined by -2.16% (7d) in terms of trading volume. 

A wash trade is generally a form of market manipulation in which an investor simultaneously sells and buys the same asset to create misleading and artificial activity in the marketplace deemed illegal in most jurisdictions.

Coinbit only had 252,000 visitors within the last three months, being overtaken by Bithumb and Upbit. The number of affected customers by the incident were still unknown at this time. As South Korea continues to draft crypto laws, there is concern that more attacks like these could follow.

Likewise, the executives of UPbit, also one of South Korea’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges, have made fraudulent transactions using a fake corporate account to make fake orders worth 254 trillion won ($226.2 billion) to inflate trading volume back in December 2018.

BestChange.ru, an aggregator of over-the-counter (OTC) cryptocurrency suppliers in Russia, is being blocked by the country’s internet censorship agency, Roskomnadzor.

According to the popup announcement on BestChange.ru, the website is still available to the users through VPN or websites like BestChange.net.

Website block announcement is made on local social media VK.com, stating that BestChange.ru website was blocked alongside a bunch of other industry sites. As per the public court records, Roskomnadzor blocked BestChange.ru alongside websites like cryptowikipedia.ru and coinpost.ru. 

As per the SimilarWeb data, BestChange saw almost 3.3 million traffic in July, with most of them coming from Russia, Ukraine, and Turkmenistan.

Although the court-approved BestChange website blocking on Jan. 22, the company only notified on July 23.

BestChange Head of Public Relations Nikita Zuborev said,

“We always hear about the lawsuits accidentally, we never get a subpoena [in time] and our lawyers always have to request a time extension to appeal first and then get to the lawsuit itself.”

The lawsuit also targeted cryptocurrency news websites and even an online shop was offering bitcoin for sale or goods in exchange for bitcoin.

The website was first blocked in 2017, but the website remains available through a VPN. Again the website was blocked in 2019.  

Bitcoin is not illegal in Russia, but it may not be used as a means of payment. On July 31, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin signed that starting from January 2021 payments in cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin are going to become illegal.

According to blockchain security firm Slowmist, hackers have looted the crypto industry of more than $13 billion in 290 different hacks.

As the crypto industry grows, the exploits seem to happen weekly either on an exchange, a blockchain, or a crypto wallet. The crypto users and investors must take precautions on storing their crypto assets.

The market is entering the bullish territory and the size of malicious attack is expanding, only in August there are several issues, such as the exploitation of the DeFi option provider, Failure of YAM v1 because of a rebase bug, and two attacks on Ethereum Classic.

More than $142 million worth of hacks happened in Ethereum based protocols, and over $1.15 billion damage resulted due to ERC-20 exploit. The centralized exchange has given up $4.6 billion to hackers.

Crypto.com CISO Jason Lau said,

“Unfortunately, like the mainstream/traditional finance industry, crypto is not immune to hacking. Bad actors and hackers follow the money, and the recent strong performance of crypto markets has made exchanges especially attractive targets.”

With 115 has EOS DAPPS leads the way. Ethereum DAPPS has been hacked 21 times and TRON DAPPS hacked 20 times, respectively. Still, each hack helps the industry grow stronger with long-term security measures.

One recent hack to be noted is the Ryuk ransomware hack, in which over $1 million worth of bitcoin was sent as payments to controllers and passed through a wallet on the Binance exchange platform.