A month ago there's a news where Lee Jung-Hoon aka Bithumb's former owner acquitted in the first instance because he was allegedly defrauded 100 billion won ($70 million) during negotiations for the acquisition of Bithumb from Kim Byung-gun since October 2018 [1].
Recently there's a news where Kang Jong-hyun is manipulating and embezzling the stock price of Bithumb exchange. Kang Jong-hyun is a shareholder of Bithumb exchange and he's suspected a Bithumb's former owner [2].
But Bithumb denying if Kang John-hyun is a former owner of their exchange and they said he has no relation to Bithumb.
Bithumb Korea distanced itself from Kang, who has also been identified as a former chairman of the exchange, saying he is connected to Vidente (121800), a publicly traded broadcasting equipment company that is a shareholder of Bithumb.
"Kang Jong-Hyun is not related to Bithumb Korea. Definitely, he was NOT the former chairman of Bithumb Korea. NEVER," the company's PR team said in an email. "We deny allegations and suspicions that he is our owner."
However there's a news where they said Kang Jong-hyun is an anonymous owner of Bithumb [3]. If you search on google and everywhere you wouldn't find who's actually the owner of Bithumb because there are a lot articles talk about Kang Jong-hyun is former owner or actually the real owner.
The question is how possible a big centralized exchange like Bithumb which is currently at top 10 position in Coinmarketcap [4] can be anonymous? I believe they're a licensed and regulated, so there's no possible they can hide their identity.
There's 3 possible answer in this case:
1. The journalist is right for saying Kang John-hyun is the real Bithumb's owner.
2. Bithumb is right for saying Kang John-hyun have no relation with them.
3. The journalist is right for saying Kang John-hyun is the former owner of Bithumb, but who's the real of Bithumb owner?
Aside of those questions, I think Bithumb is can't be trusted because there are few accusations have been created in this forum before [5] [6] [7].
[1]
https://cointelegraph.com/news/bithumb-former-chair-lee-jung-hoon-acquitted-in-the-first-instance[2]
https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2023/02/02/south-korean-prosecutors-arrest-executive-linked-to-crypto-exchange-bithumb-report/[3]
https://financefeeds.com/de-facto-owner-of-bithumb-exchange-arrested-in-south-korea/[4]
https://coinmarketcap.com/rankings/exchanges/[5]
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/bithumb-deposit-not-received-need-help-possible-scam-alert-5316003[6]
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/bithumb-exchange-btc-withdraw-is-not-working-2636545[7]
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/bithumb-top-one-scam-market-2296862