South Korea’s Bithumb entering Singapore via local Bitholic exchange

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South Korean cryptocurrency exchange Bithumb is making its debut in Singapore via a deal with Bitholic, a local crypto trading platform. According to a report by News1 Korea, Bitholic changed its name recently to Bithumb Singapore to reflect the partnership and the new operational structure.

Bithumb is one of the earliest exchanges in the crypto industry. It’s the second largest in South Korea after the Kakao-affiliated Upbit.

A Bitholic official confirmed the partnership to the outlet, but declined to reveal the new equity structure between the two entities which remains unknown. The move by Bithumb is part of its international expansion, the official stated. However, at press time, the Bitholic website is yet to change its name.

The outlet further revealed that Bitholic was established in 2018 and has continued to add more trading pairs as its client base has expanded. Currently, it supports trading with Bitcoin SV, SegWitCoin (BTC), QTUM, BCHABC, Ether, Litecoin, Ethereum Classic and more. The exchange was established by RDM Chain, a Singaporean company.

According to the report, Bitholic is represented by Park Jung-hoon, a former director of the Bithumb Strategic Planning Office.

Bithumb has not had the best year. In April, it revealed that it had registered a $180 million net loss in 2018 following the collapse of the price of SegWitCoin (BTC). The loss led the exchange to lay off 30 of its staff members in January.

To pile on to an already gloomy year for the exchange, the prosecutor’s office in South Seoul announced that it would be taking steps to charge Bithumb for its failure in protecting users’ financial information. As CoinGeek reported, this was a response to the exchange’s recent hacks and leaks.

The prosecutor alleged that the user information was leaked through one computer at the exchange. The user of the alleged computer did not upgrade his software and failed to run a mandatory antivirus check. This left the computer prone to attacks.

However, Bithumb reversed the bad fortunes with the securing of $200 million in funding from ST Blockchain Fund, a Japanese blockchain investment fund. The exchange pledged to use the funds to fuel its international expansion as well as introduce new trading pairs.