South Korea’s Bithumb to Open New Offices in Japan and Thailand

| Updated
by Julia Sakovich · 3 min read
South Korea’s Bithumb to Open New Offices in Japan and Thailand
Photo: Bithumb Global / Facebook

Bithumb, one of South Korea’s major cryptocurrency exchanges, is expanding its geography to Thailand and Japan.

As it has been revealed, South Korean exchange Bithumb is planning to expand its geography and open new offices in Thailand and Japan. These both locations have been included into the company’s global expansion plan.

Bithumb has already applied for licences at the regulatory bodies in the both countries to secure permissions to operate in these markets. And now it is waiting for the approvals from Japanese Financial Services Agency (FSA) and Thai Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Being the South Korea’s biggest cryptocurrency exchange, Bithumb is also one of the biggest exchanges in the world. In 2017, it earned 171 times more than it managed to earn back in 2016. Moreover, it has successfully passed through a tax audit of the local authorities in South Korea. And it has already begun to implement its expansion plan having opened its offices in the UK and Singapore.

Nevertheless, there were some difficulties as well. In May, it was enforced to stop supporting a certain cryptocurrency after it had been noticed that it belonged to members of Bithumb staff and was presented on the exchange without going through the usual procedures.

A little bit later in June, Bithumb became a victim of a hack and lost nearly $31 million of customers’ money. Bithumb promised to cover all the loss from its own pocket.

And now the exchange has chosen two new two jurisdictions that are among the most cryptocurrency-friendly in the world.

Bithumb has chosen Thailand not randomly. It is explained by the fact that the country has a rapidly growing and developing e-commerce and fin-tech industry. Moreover, Thai regulators realize the potential of cryptocurrencies and are actively working on the ICOs regulation. It is expected that Bithumb will start its operations in Thailand in October this year.

As for Japan, the country adopted cryptocurrency as a means of payment in April of last year. All companies that want to establish their business in the country and manage an exchange must get an approval from the country’s top financial regulator, the FSA.

Though the country regularly welcomes new companies dealing with cryptocurrencies, after the hack that happened at Coincheck platform in January, the FSA has introduced a stricter exchange approval process.

In spite of strict rules, Bithumb isn’t going to give up and is already waiting for a permission to open an exchange in Japan. It is said that it could happen in February 2019.

Worth noting, that it won’t be just an ordinary platform, Bithumb is planning to create an exchange that will support the biggest number of cryptocurrencies in the country.

The official announcement states:

“Bithumb is preparing exchange platforms for countries under the global expansion plan and we are looking for great and potential partners (corporation, entity or group) worldwide…The exchange platforms under final development stages are USD / JYP / EUR / CNY / INR / GBP / AUD / CAD / PHP / RUB and [there] will be more soon when there are any service demands.”

In such a way, Bithumb’s policy for global expansion is not limited to solely these two jurisdictions – South Korea’s cryptocurrency giant plans to move ahead.

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