South Korea has quickly become the biggest region for cryptocurrency trading. Unlike China, South Korea is open-minded when it comes to cryptocurrencies in general. Bithumb, one of the biggest local exchanges to date, is getting so big they need police protection. More specifically, their headquarter is under protection as customers aren’t happy about the recent outage. It is evident exchanges are a weak point in the world of cryptocurrency, and a crappy infrastructure will cause outrage.
Things have been pretty difficult for Bithumb as of late. The company dealt with a major server outage a few days ago. A few users got so annoyed they filed a class action lawsuit. For a ninety-minute outage, most people wouldn’t even go to such lengths. Then again, the outage costs traders several million dollars. It is evident things will need to be improved in this regard. Several exchanges struggle to remain online these days, especially during times of intense trading volume. Bithumb is, sadly, not an exception in this regard.
Another Major Problem for Bithumb
All of this occurred during the recent Bitcoin Cash price spike. All of a sudden, Bithumb announced an emergency maintenance. This lasted for around an hour and a half. During this time, no trades were executed, causing major financial losses for traders. One user lost nearly $225,000 in the process. Exchanges need to step up their game in this regard, as these types of stories are all too common. Technical issues can occur at any given time, but companies need to bear financial responsibility when it happens. So far, that has not been the case where Bithumb is concerned.
The company is looking for measures to compensate the investors. Until then, the headquarters of Bithumb has received police protection. A lot of users are unhappy with Bithumb and the way they handled things these past few days. The class action lawsuit from around 3,000 customers will only make things worse in this regard. It is not the first time this exchange has run into major issues, mind you. It is doubtful this will be the last time either.
In June of 2017, the company was compromised during the XRP price rise. It seems a lot of the issues from back then still haven’t been fixed. That is irresponsible, especially for a company in a position like Bithumb. We see more and more class action lawsuits against cryptocurrency exchanges these days. So far, none of them have resulted in any major changes or repercussions. There are plenty of issues when it comes to cryptocurrency platforms, that much is rather evident. Decentralized trading is the future, but it will take years to become the new norm.
Header image courtesy of Shutterstock
