Bithumb to Get Wall Street-Level Fintech Expertise via New Partnership

As not a day goes by without another cryptocurrency partnership, one of the biggest crypto exchanges in South Korea has begun new cooperation.

Major South Korean cryptocurrency exchange Bithumb has partnered with Singaporean crypto trading platform BitMax to jointly develop new services and products.

BitMax’s staff includes former experts from Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank and Gemini

According to a Feb. 17 blog post by Bithumb Official, the two companies have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to bring their forces together to build new services and strengthen their competitiveness in the global market. As part of the MoU, Bithumb and BitMax will be sharing their expertise with one another to actively cooperate in the development of blockchain and crypto-related technologies and infrastructure.

In the announcement, Bithumb emphasized that BitMax’s founding team includes quant trading experts from Wall Street as well as major crypto trading veterans. Founded by George Cao, former chief investment officer of Delpha Capital Management in 2018, BitMax comprises experts from top global financial firms such as Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs and Bloomberg and Winklevoss-run crypto exchange Gemini.

BitMax is a major crypto liquidity player

With the new partnership with BitMax, Bithumb hopes to access fintech know-how from Wall Street, the South Korean exchange said. Additionally, the MoU is designed to equip Bithumb with more capabilities in building infrastructure and expanding bases in related industries, the company noted.

Additionally, BitMax is purportedly one of the top 10 global players in terms of cryptocurrency liquidity, Bithumb noted. Liquidity refers to the level of ease at which an asset can be bought or sold.

Cointelegraph has contacted both Bithumb and BitMax for additional comments on the partnership and will update this article if we hear back.

Having suffered at least three crypto hacks as of March 2019, Bithumb is one of the largest global crypto exchanges by daily trading volume, ranked the 8th-biggest exchange on Coin360. In mid-January 2020, Bithumb announced its intention to litigate a $69 million tax bill from South Korea’s National Tax Service.

In September 2019, Cointelegraph reported on the alleged difficulties with payments in a deal to acquire Bithumb exchange. While the deal’s viability remained unclear, unnamed Chinese and American investors were reportedly considering acquiring Bithumb at the time.