South Korea's popular cryptocurrency exchange Bithumb, which got hacked in June of this year, is reportedly accepting new account registrations, according to a local media outlet. Bithumb had suspended its new account registration service on July 31, putting it down to a service improvement process.
The exchange is now said to be renewing its contract with the country's Nonghyup Bank - its banking partner. Both the exchange and the bank are planning to sign the agreement on August 30, 2018, for assigning new virtual accounts to cryptocurrency traders.
Nonghyup Bank had suspended its services for Bithumb at the end of July, probably after the exchange lost $17 million to a hack in June. Earlier, the amount of loss was reported at $31 million, later the exchange lowered the estimated amount of money lost in the hack to $17 million. Bithumb got hacked shortly after the Japanese-based exchange Coinrail's hack, which lost $40 million to it.
Bithumb was also the under investigation by the tax authorities in the country on account of allegations and suspicions of tax evasions and illegal activities. In June of this year, it got a clean chit. "No evidence [of] tax evasion and illicit activities was shown and the NTS [National Tax Services] closed the investigation into Bithumb officially, clearing the company.”
Earlier in July, South Korea's regulatory authority Financial Services Commission (FSC) revised its guidelines for virtual currencies sector in order to prevent money laundering. The FSC conducted on-site inspections of three domestic banks - Nonghyup, Kookmin, and Hana Bank - the results of which prompted the update to Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and Know Your Customer (KYC) guidelines. The new regulations are stricter, which are expected to benefit the crypto community at large. The revised guidelines came into effect July 10, 2018.