Update March 20, 10:50 am UTC: This article has been updated to add a Wu Blockchain report on Bithumb listings, claiming that multiple crypto projects paid intermediary fees to have their tokens listed.

South Korean prosecutors raided crypto exchange Bithumb following suspicions that its former CEO embezzled funds to purchase an apartment. 

On March 20, Seoul’s Southern District Prosecutors’ Office reportedly searched Bithumb’s offices in the country.

The investigation centered around allegations that the crypto exchange gave a 3 billion Korean won (over $2 million) apartment lease deposit to Kim Dae-sik, its former CEO and board member, who now works as an adviser to the firm. 

Prosecutors raised concerns over potential financial misconduct within the company, suspecting that Kim used some of the funds to purchase a personal apartment.

Bithumb says its former CEO repaid the funds

Local media outlet YTN reported that the country’s Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) had previously investigated the suspicions and handed their findings to the prosecutor’s office. 

In an interview with The Chosun Daily, a Bithumb representative said some of the allegations are true.

The exchange said the executive took a loan from a lender immediately after the FSS investigation. After this, Bithumb said Kim repaid the funds spent on the apartment purchase in full. 

Apart from the apartment, rumors that projects paid intermediary fees to get listed in Bithumb also circulated online. Citing anonymous sources, Wu Blockchain reported on March 20 that two projects claimed to have paid $2 million and $10 million, respectively, to get listed on Bithumb and Upbit. 

The report claimed that the “intermediaries” were related to Upbit’s shareholders and market makers. Wu Blockchain also said that some intermediary fees ranged from 3% to 5% of entire token supplies. 

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Bithumb faces probe amid IPO push

The investigation comes as the crypto exchange attempts another push to go public. On March 18, the Business Post reported that Bithumb CEO Lee Jae-won is expediting the process of the company’s long-awaited initial public offering (IPO). 

The report said the company has reorganized to eliminate judicial risks on major shareholders.

In 2021, Bithumb’s former board of directors chairman, Lee Jeong-hoon, was indicted on alleged fraud charges. As South Korea’s Supreme Court acquitted the Bithumb executive, the exchange is expected to speed up its IPO in 2025. 

Bithumb’s IPO plans date back to 2020 when local media reported that the exchange platform had been preparing for a stock market launch.

However, the company faced obstacles that prevented it from successfully conducting an IPO. In 2023, the company chose an underwriter for its IPO plans, reigniting the chatter it’s working on conducting an IPO. 

In 2024, the rumors were confirmed as Bithumb Korea set up a non-exchange business to accelerate its debut on the stock market. However, the news was paired with a 57% loss in annual revenue for the exchange operator in the fiscal year 2023. 

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Aleksei Andriunin, a Russian national charged with manipulating cryptocurrency through the Gotbit market maker platform, has reportedly struck a plea deal with prosecutors in the United States.

Gotbit founder and CEO Andriunin has agreed to forfeit about $23 million in Tether USDt (USDT) and Circle’s USDC (USDC) in a plea deal with Massachusetts federal prosecutors, the legal news service Law360 reported on March 19.

As part of the plea, Andriunin will plead guilty to three counts charging conspiracy to commit wire fraud and market manipulation, according to the letter signed by the defendant on March 19.

An excerpt from letters in the Gotbix founder case related to the $23 million forfeiture as part of the plea with Massachusetts prosecutors: Law360 

“Defendant understands and agrees that forfeiture shall not satisfy or affect any fine, lien, penalty, restitution, cost of imprisonment, tax liability or any other debt owed to the United States,” the letter reads.

The agreement doesn’t bind the US Attorney General

In the letter to the defendant, the US Attorney for the District of Massachusetts, Leah Foley, stressed that the agreement to forfeit $23 million is only between Andriunin and the attorney.

“It does not bind the Attorney General of the United States or any other federal, state, or local prosecuting authorities,” the letter reads.

The letter also states that the defendant acknowledges the court is not obligated to adhere to the sentencing calculations proposed by the Massachusetts attorney.

An excerpt from legal letters in the Gotbix founder case related to sentencing guidelines with Massachusetts prosecutors: Law360 

“Defendant may not withdraw defendant’s guilty plea if defendant disagrees with how the court calculates the guidelines or with the sentence the court imposes,” attorney Foley wrote.

Andriunin was extradited to the US in October 2025

Gotbit founder’s deal with Massachusetts prosecutors came months after Andriunin was extradited to the US in October 2024 after being arrested by Portuguese authorities.

Since extradition, Andriunin has appeared in a federal court in Boston, Massachusetts, where he was ordered to remain detained until further notice.

Andriunin, 26, was charged with wire fraud and conspiracy to commit market manipulation and wire fraud in a superseding indictment in October 2024.

Source: Alex Andriunin 

According to Massachusetts court documents, Gotbit was a crypto “market maker” that orchestrated a “widespread cryptocurrency market manipulation scheme.” The platform was registered in Belize and was said to provide artificial trading volume for global firms, including those in the US, between 2017 and 2024.

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Apart from Andriunin, the criminal complaint from Massachusetts authorities in September 2024 also involved other Gotbit employees, such as marketing director Fedor Kedrov and sales director Qawi Jalili, both living in Russia.

In the plea letter, Massachusetts attorney Foley mentioned that the assets listed in the forfeiture section of the Gotbit plea agreement are solely controlled by the defendant on Gotbit’s behalf despite these assets belonging to Gotbit.

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The lion’s share of the hacked Bybit funds is still traceable after the historic cybertheft, as blockchain investigators continue their efforts to freeze and recover these funds.

The crypto industry was rocked by the largest hack in history on Feb. 21, when Bybit lost over $1.4 billion in liquid-staked Ether (stETH), Mantle Staked ETH (mETH) and other digital assets.

Blockchain security firms, including Arkham Intelligence, have identified North Korea’s Lazarus Group as the likely culprit behind the Bybit exploit, as the attackers have continued swapping the funds in an effort to make them untraceable.

Despite the Lazarus Group’s efforts, over 88% of the stolen $1.4 billion remains traceable, according to Ben Zhou, the co-founder and CEO of Bybit exchange.

The CEO wrote in a March 20 X post:

“Total hacked funds of USD 1.4bn around 500k ETH. 88.87% remain traceable, 7.59% have gone dark, 3.54% have been frozen.”

“86.29% (440,091 ETH, ~$1.23B) have been converted into 12,836 BTC  across 9,117 wallets (Average 1.41 BTC each),” said the CEO, adding that the funds were mainly funneled through Bitcoin (BTC) mixers, including Wasbi, CryptoMixer, Railgun and Tornado Cash.

Source: Ben Zhou

The CEO’s update comes nearly a month after the exchange was hacked. It took the Lazarus Group 10 days to launder 100% of the stolen Bybit funds through the decentralized crosschain protocol THORChain, Cointelegraph reported on March 4.

Still, blockchain security experts are hopeful that a portion of these funds can be frozen and recovered by Bybit.

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The crypto industry needs more blockchain “bounty hunters” and white hat, or ethical hackers, to combat the growing illicit activity from North Korean actors.

Decoding transaction patterns through cryptocurrency mixers remains the biggest challenge in tracing these funds, Bybit’s CEO wrote, adding:

“In the past 30 days, 5012 bounty reports were received of which 63 were valid bounty reports. We welcome more reports, we need more bounty hunters that can decode mixers as we need a lot of help there down the road.”

Bybit paid $2.2 million for Lazarus “bounty hunters”

Bybit has awarded over $2.2 million worth of funds to 12 bounty hunters for relevant information that may lead to the freezing of the funds, according to LazarusBounty, a website dedicated to tracking Bybit bounty payouts.

The exchange is offering 10% of the recovered funds as a bounty for white hat hackers and investigators.

Bybit’s bounty payout details for Lazarus-linked hack. Source: LazarusBounty

Related: Bybit exploit exposes security flaws in centralized crypto exchanges

The Bybit attack highlights that even centralized exchanges with strong security measures remain vulnerable to sophisticated cyberattacks, analysts say.

“This incident is another stark reminder that even the strongest security measures can be undone by human error,” Lucien Bourdon, an analyst at Trezor, told Cointelegraph.

Bourdon explained that attackers used a sophisticated social engineering technique, deceiving signers into approving a malicious transaction that drained crypto from one of Bybit’s cold wallets.

The Bybit hack is more than twice the size of the $600 million Poly Network hack in August 2021, making it the largest crypto exchange breach to date.

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