Kiwoom Securities' Bithumb stake acquisition is effectively dead. Internal sources say talks have become unviable to continue, partly because the deal became public and added pressure Kiwoom didn't want, and partly because of Bithumb's genuinely convoluted ownership structure. An internal source put it plainly, the complexity plus the burden of getting the deal done created an internal consensus this isn't worth pursuing. There's also apparently a real strategic split inside Kiwoom, one camp wants to focus resources on STO, another thinks strengthening existing pension, IB, and retail businesses matters more, and the anti-acquisition side specifically argued the extra burden of a Bithumb deal isn't worth it relative to those priorities. The ownership structure that reportedly scared them off is genuinely layered: founder Lee Jung-hoon and CEO Kim Byung-gun sit at the very top through SG Brain Technology Consulting (50% + 0.01% allied stake for Lee, 49.99% for Kim), which controls BTHMB Holdings Pte Ltd, which controls DAA, which controls Bithumb Holdings (73.56% of Bithumb), alongside Vident (10.22%), T Sciencetific (7.17%), and other shareholders (9.05%). That's four holding layers before you get to the actual exchange, and Vident specifically has its own separate delisting risk hanging over it from the embezzlement case flagged back in June. This doesn't kill Bithumb's ownership story entirely, other securities firms are reportedly still interested precisely because acquiring a licensed exchange gets you an instant user base and cross-sell surface with existing financial products. But the same structural complexity that pushed Kiwoom out remains the central obstacle for whoever tries next. Kiwoom's official response was a flat "cannot confirm."

Useless Memecoin Rally Accelerates After Bithumb Announces Listing The Solana network’s token solana:Dz9mQ9NzkBcCsuGPFJ3r1bS4wgqKMHBPiVuniW8Mbonk rose by 22% within 24 hours prior to listing on Bithumb. The token grew by 160% during the week and by 500% during the month. Bithumb earlier revealed plans to launch trading of USELESS for Korean won starting from 14:00 local time today. The token had already been in the limelight after being used in the Kraken trading challenge. It was issued via BONKfun.

$MPLX is now live on @BithumbOfficial. Metaplex is the leading tokenization platform on Solana and now $MPLX is available to the Bithumb community. Accelerate tokenization on Solana.

The Sandbox's bridge exploit minted unbacked SAND on Base and BSC. Upbit and Bithumb froze transfers under South Korea's user-protection rules, with Upbit also halting @ethereum deposits and withdrawals despite the chain being unaffected. Read more here: