Prices on Bithumb for several digital assets continue to be outlandishly high a month after the hack that wiped out around $30 million’s worth of digital assets from the Korean cryptocurrency market. The exchange still keeps a lock on deposits and withdrawals, creating a low-liquidity market for some coins. This creates a noticeable premium compared to other exchanges.
This has led to extraordinary prices, which, however, cannot be used in arbitrage, due to the closed wallets. Hence the prices remain just a curiosity, and CoinMarketCap has excluded them from the calculation of the final price.
Some of the most notable examples include Augur (REP), which usually trades in the $30 range, but on Bithumb has climbed to around $200. Stratis (STRAT) has gone as high as $9.59, while on other exchanges its price hovers at $2.89. Ethos (ETHOS), which trades around $1.02, is $6.02 on Bithumb. The premium also affects DASH, but not more actively traded coins like Bitcoin (BTC), or TRON (TRX).
The premium on Bithumb is above and beyond the usual premium of some assets against the Korean Won. In the past, Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash and other assets have traded higher on Korean exchanges, but the situation on Bithumb is unusual.
The exact source of the price increase is unknown - some believe it may be outright price manipulation, or just a side effect of the low supply for several coins. However, the vulnerability of crypto exchanges to hacks has worried regulators.
Centralized exchanges can be points of failure, and it is also possible that a single market is much more vulnerable to pumps, amplified bot activity, or outright manipulation. In the case of Bithumb, it is unknown when normal withdrawals or deposits would resume, and it is possible prices would normalize.
In the past, the premium on Korean markets has spiked buying across the board, making CoinMarketCap exclude Korean exchanges altogether. Later, the Korean prices were included again, with the exception of the special Bithumb case.
Bithumb users on Reddit were already clamoring for the exchange to resume regular service. Bithumb recently performed planned maintenance:
https://twitter.com/BithumbOfficial/status/1021985250564616192
The exchange has also given indications to Redditors it would overhaul its wallet ecosystem for better security.
This article appeared first on Cryptovest
