{"id":69074,"date":"2022-10-25T15:12:46","date_gmt":"2022-10-25T12:12:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/?p=69074"},"modified":"2025-09-07T17:44:51","modified_gmt":"2025-09-07T14:44:51","slug":"former-bithumb-chief-faces-potential-prison-term","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/former-bithumb-chief-faces-potential-prison-term\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Bithumb chief faces potential prison term"},"content":{"rendered":"

The former chairman of the Bitcoin exchange Bithumb, Lee Jong-hoon, could face an eight-year prison term on charges of defrauding investors of $70 million. Prosecutors have made similar demands, Yonhap<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The case relates to the sale of BXA tokens as part of the Singapore-based BK Group’s 2018 bid to acquire it.<\/p>\n

Lee Jong-hoon carried out an asset pre-sale to the buyer worth $25 million. Investors also bought the tokens for about $45 million.<\/p>\n

Bithumb did not list BXA, which formed the basis for a lawsuit against Lee Jong-hoon and Kim Ben Gon, the chairman of BK Group, on charges of fraud. The latter was not named as a defendant \u2014 investigators concluded that he could be considered a victim of the token sale, as were other investors.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Lee’s lawyers argued that the token sale was conducted in line with a ‘typical share-sale agreement’.<\/p>\n

A court hearing is scheduled for December 20.<\/p>\n

In September 2020, Seoul police carried out a series of raids<\/a> at the company’s offices and seized a portion of Bithumb Holdings’ shares<\/a> belonging to Kim Ben Gon.<\/p>\n

That same time, the exchange’s CEO Lee Jong-hoon was summoned for questioning<\/a> in the BXA fraud case. In light of reports about Bithumb’s troubles with authorities, media reported that the company was put up for sale again<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The possibility of acquiring the exchange was allegedly studied<\/a> by its competitor Huobi.<\/p>\n

In January 2021, journalists named a likely buyer<\/a> of Bithumb the gaming company Nexon Group. Representatives of the latter denied reports<\/a> of a potential deal worth 500 billion won (~$457 million).<\/p>\n

In the spring, it emerged that talks to purchase the exchange were joined by the South Korean internet giant Naver<\/a>. At the time, media reported at least ten companies seeking a stake in Bithumb.<\/p>\n

Earlier, one of the largest American banks Morgan Stanley<\/a> was on the list. Among potential buyers were Deutsche Bank, JPMorgan, Visa, CME’s subsidiary, Binance and several other unnamed entities.<\/p>\n

In July, ForkLog reported that FTX<\/a> was interested in buying the South Korean cryptocurrency exchange.<\/p>\n

Follow ForkLog’s bitcoin news on our Telegram<\/a> \u2014 cryptocurrency news, prices and analysis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The former chairman of the Bitcoin exchange Bithumb, Lee Jong-hoon, could face an eight-year prison term on charges of defrauding investors of $70 million. Prosecutors have made similar demands, Yonhap reports.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":69075,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"select":"1","news_style_id":"1","cryptorium_level":"","_short_excerpt_text":"","creation_source":"","_metatest_mainpost_news_update":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[973,1162,596],"class_list":["post-69074","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-bithumb","tag-court-cases","tag-tokens"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"views":"27","promo_type":"1","layout_type":"1","short_excerpt":"","is_update":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69074","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69074"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69074\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":69076,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69074\/revisions\/69076"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69075"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69074"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69074"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69074"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}