South Korean cryptocurrency exchange Bithumb has reportedly managed to rake in a $35.3 million profit in the first half of this year, despite suffering a security breach that saw hackers steal roughly $31.5 million off of its coffers.
According to local news outlet Yonhap, the data comes from the company’s semi-annual report published on the Financial Supervisory Service’s Electronic Disclosure System (DART). Per the cited report, it had an operating profit of $194 million.
Bithumb's English language service has been improved.🔧
Bithumb team is keep working for enhanced language service.
We will try our best to provide better service.
We appreciate for your support!🙏— Bithumb (@BithumbOfficial) May 28, 2018
The company makes money by charging users fees for trading crypto-assets on its platform. As CryptoGlobe covered, this type of cryptocurrency trading revenue could double this year to $4 billion. Last year, exchanges raked in $1.8 billion from it, nearly half of which was enjoyed by Coinbase.
The news outlet pointed out that Bithumb’s net profit in 2017 was of about $383.4 million, a number that came after the company revealed its revenues had risen by 171%. The decline, as Yonhap noted, was partly due to the cryptocurrency ecosystem’s bearish trend, which saw most cryptocurrencies drop from their all-time highs.
Notably, Bithumb managed to turn a profit in the first half of this year after being hacked in June. At the time, the company reportedly lost about $31.5 million worth of cryptos and reacted by suspending withdrawals and deposits.
In an attempt to prevent further damage, it quickly moved all of its funds from hot wallets to cold storage, where hackers wouldn’t be able to reach them. A week after the incident, the exchange revealed it managed to recover $14 million and detailed it was going to compensate its users through an “airdrop event.”
Bithumb reopened deposits and withdrawals earlier this month, but only for 9 cryptocurrencies – bitcoin, ethereum, XRP, ethereum classic, qtum, litecoin, bitcoin cash, monero, zcash and mithril.
This means that on its platform 25 cryptocurrencies are still suspended. Explaining the move, the company wrote:
Some cryptocurrencies with a significant price difference of about 10 percent between Bithumb market and standard market will be opted out for this customer's asset. When services return to normal, rapid changes in price are expected. Therefore resuming normal services for such cryptocurrencies will be put on hold for the time being.
At press time, Bithumb is the 19th-largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume, as over $60 million worth of cryptos changed hands on its platform in the last 24-hours.
