Plastic surgeon-led group to give South Korean cryptocurrency exchange Bithumb a makeover

South Korean cryptocurrency exchange Bithumb is set for a makeover, following a US$350 million investment by a plastic surgeon-led consortium.

Byung Gun Kim, a South Korean surgeon and chief executive of Singapore-incorporated Blockchain Exchange Alliance (BXA), and five other investors from Hong Kong, Japan, the Middle East, the United Kingdom and the United States will acquire a 51 per cent stake in the exchange, which has been hit by security breaches in the past. The consortium still has to pay a final amount of US$250 million to selling shareholder BTC Korea and the deal is expected to be completed in February.

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BXA plans to build a network of cryptocurrency exchanges spanning 12 countries, and Bithumb’s 4.5 million global users will form the potential client base on which it will develop this network, according to a statement on its website.

A second equity financing round after the deal is completed could bring in more investors. “Over the past three months, we have been discussing with our consortium shareholders about how to position Bithumb and BXA for their global expansion. As we have received interest from other potential investors, we might consider another equity financing round to accelerate our expansion,” said Kim, adding that this could happen in 2019.

BXA aims to build exchanges, for cryptocurrency and security tokens, in Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand, Japan, the UK, the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Mexico and Peru. Regulations on cryptocurrency and tokenised assets vary by country.

Kim, who is a permanent resident in Singapore and owns an aesthetic clinic there, also runs a 15-storey plastic surgery hospital in Seoul that he founded. Of late, he has been spending “80 per cent” of his time on Bithumb.