Bithumb to block cryptocurrency withdrawals to unverified wallets

According to the new policy, all users have to undergo additional identity verification

25.01.2022 - 13:00

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1 min

What’s new? As of January 27, the South Korean cryptocurrency exchange Bithumb will ban users from withdrawing digital assets to unverified private wallets. The new policy states that users can only specify their own wallets. In order to link a wallet, the users will have to undergo additional identity verification.

Information on the Bithumb blog

What was the reason for the ban? The exchange faced pressure from its partner bank, Nonghyup Bank, which had to change its policy to comply with the FATF (Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering) rules.

The bank has demanded that the exchange block all personal wallets that do not have their own KYC system. Such wallets include MetaMask and MyEtherWallet.

What is the situation with other platforms? At the end of December, the Coinone, Upbit, and Korbit exchanges introduced a similar policy. According to Statista, Upbit handles about 76% of South Korea’s domestic trading volume, while second-placed Bithumb handles about 13%. Withdrawals to any local or foreign centralized exchange with a strict KYC process, such as Kraken, Bitstamp, Blockchain.com, Bybit, and Binance.US, are still possible.

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