In a move that surprised absolutely no one who has ever met a regulator, Bithumb-South Korea’s second-favorite crypto exchange (after the one that serves kimchi-flavored NFTs)-has decided to shutter its USDT market faster than a butler fleeing a tea spill. The culprit? A regulatory probe sharper than Aunt Agatha’s glare.
The shutdown, effective at 11:00 AM on Friday, left ten cryptocurrencies orphaned in the USDT market, presumably sobbing into their digital wallets.
Regulators Crash the Party 🎉🔍
The Korea Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), a group of folks who clearly don’t believe in “live and let live,” descended upon Bithumb on October 1, 2025, like a swarm of bees at a honey convention. Their mission? To determine if the exchange’s cozy order-book-sharing arrangement with Australia’s Stellar Exchange was less “innovative liquidity solution” and more “how to launder money without trying.”
The Travel Rule, that pesky global requirement forcing exchanges to spill the beans on who’s sending what to whom, was allegedly being given the slip via cross-border trades. Regulators, ever the buzzkills, feared Bithumb’s partnership was turning into a regulatory game of Whac-A-Mole.
Sources whisper this investigation dragged on longer than Jeeves’s explanation of why the soufflé collapsed. The prolonged scrutiny left Bithumb sweating like a penguin in a sauna.
A Partnership Doomed from the Start 🤝💥
On September 22, 2025, Bithumb proudly announced its USDT market beta, hand-in-hand with Stellar Exchange, like two debutantes at a ball. The idea? Share order books, boost liquidity, and make traders feel like they’re swimming in a pool of digital gold. Alas, the dream lasted roughly as long as a mayfly’s lifespan.
Things got fishier than a seafood buffet when it emerged that BingX staff were lurking in Bithumb’s Seoul HQ-raising eyebrows higher than a startled butler’s monocle. Stellar Exchange, you see, is a subsidiary of BingX, a Singapore-based outfit that may or may not have a framed “World’s Most Compliant Exchange” certificate on its wall.
South Korea, ever the stickler for rules, enforces the Act on the Protection of Virtual Asset Users with the enthusiasm of a headmaster enforcing curfew. Authorities fretted that cross-border partnerships might be the crypto equivalent of letting foxes guard henhouses-except with more spreadsheets.
Fallout for Traders (and Their Shattered Dreams) 😢📉
All outstanding USDT market orders will be canceled faster than a bad date, and API services will be suspended with the finality of a butler closing the door on an unwelcome guest. The ten affected cryptos will still trade in Korean Won, because regulators aren’t complete monsters.
Bithumb’s official notice claimed the closure was to “offer a more stable, advanced trading environment”-a phrase as convincing as a cat insisting it didn’t knock over the vase. Observers, however, suspect this was less “voluntary upgrade” and more “regulators holding a gun to our head while smiling politely.”
This whole debacle serves as a cautionary tale for exchanges eyeing international expansion: if you’re going to dance with regulators, wear steel-toed shoes.
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2025-11-27 06:12