The South Korean crypto exchange Bithumb lost 180 million Dollars in 2018!
Bithumb, the biggest crypto exchange in South Korea, recorded net losses of 205.5 billion Won in 2018, or about 180 million Dollars!
According to the local press Coindeskkorea, the loss is mainly due to a sharp fall in the cryptocurrency market last year and therefore to the crypto bear market, although the operator of the company, BTCKorea, also mentioned investments in infrastructure and labor costs.
This figure represents a great debacle for Bithumb, which made a profit of $469 million in 2017.
However, exchange revenues increased by about 17.5 percent to 391.7 billion Won ($343.4 million) in 2018, compared with 333.4 billion won ($292.3 million) the previous year.
The figures also show that the operating profit of the crypto stock market fell by 3.4% to 256.1 billion Won ($224.5 million) last year, compared to 265.1 billion Won ($232.5 million) in 2017.
However, operating expenses increased by one billion Wons ($59.8 million) to 135.6 billion won ($119 million), while non-operating expenses increased significantly from 4.1 billion ($3.6 million) to 381.9 billion won ($334.8 million).
This is another proof that the South Korean crypto exchange is not going through its best moment.
And even more recently, it lost 13 million Dollars in EOS cryptocurrency and about 6.2 million Dollars in XRP after the hacking of the crypto exchange a second time.
The last hack showed that the crypto exchange had not learned anything from last year’s attack, where it had lost $16 million worth of crypto-currencies precisely because it did not protect them in cold wallets.
Although, according to reports, it is thought that this year’s attack would be an inside job.
In addition, the stolen tokens came from the company and not from its users.
In the middle of this financial troubles, Bithumb announced last month that he planned to reduce his workforce by 50%, from 310 to about 150 employees.
The times are hard for crypto exchanges but also for holders of cryptocurrencies waiting for a market reversal and the next Bitcoin bull run!
Not to mention the hacking of some crypto exchanges like cryptopia, Bithumb, etc…
The bear market for cryptocurrency and Bitcoin is not over and there will certainly be other companies that will disappear either simply because of bankruptcy or new exit scams.
The recent closure of THOR is a good example of that after wasting $21 million!
