South Korean Court Lifts Six-Month Suspension on Bithumb

In a significant legal victory, a South Korean court has revoked the six-month partial business suspension of Bithumb, as reported by Yonhap News. The Seoul Administrative Court's Judge Gong Hyeon-jin granted Bithumb's application for a stay of execution on the same day it was submitted, although it is unclear whether the $24.6 million fine imposed by the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) has also been suspended. The fine and suspension were imposed in March due to alleged non-compliance with local anti-money laundering regulations. Bithumb, one of South Korea's largest cryptocurrency exchanges, had requested the court to lift the suspension and fine, citing the FIU's discovery of millions of violations of the country's anti-money laundering rules. The FIU had found approximately 6.65 million violations, including failures to verify customer identities and improper transaction blocking. This ruling comes as South Korean regulators increase their oversight of the cryptocurrency market, with other exchanges, such as Upbit, also facing probes. Established in 2014, Bithumb is one of the largest exchanges in South Korea by trading volume, according to CoinGecko data, and the lifting of the suspension follows a recent incident in which the exchange mistakenly distributed billions of dollars worth of bitcoin to users.