UPBit Exchange Passes Audit with Flying Colours
The largest South Korean exchange UPBit passed the government inspection with flying colors.
Last weeks rumors began circulating around the internet that UPBit was suspected of sharing/ pooling liquidity with other exchanges, which prompted swift action from South Korean Financial Supervisory Service (FSS), Korean Financial Intelligence Unit (KIU) and Financial Services Commission (FSC).
It turns out it was all a case of much ado about nothing, as the investigators confirmed that UPBit’s balance sheet was as healthy as a fiddle. The audit by Yoojin, a major accounting firm in South Korea, was completed on 15th May and confirmed that the funds recorded on UPbit’s balance sheet perfectly matched the actual holdings of the company.
MoneyToday reported that “since early 2018, UPbit created snapshots of its multi-signature wallets and funds stored within them for auditing purposes. Yoojin accounting firm, a major accounting firm based in Seoul, confirmed that all of the funds on the UPbit platform match the cryptocurrency holdings of UPbit stored in its multi-signature wallets”.
The confusion stemmed from the fact that UPbit lists over 130 cryptocurrencies on their platform, however only 90 of them can be directly withdraw and deposited. The other 40 don’t have native wallets and must be converted to either Bitcoin or Ethereum.
Despite the successful audit, the event caused considerable FUD in the South Korean crypto markets and has damaged the reputation of the local crypto exchanges.
Ever since the Mt. Gox debacle, crypto markets have been very nervous and fearful of another major exchange scandal, therefore unnecessary FUD like this needs to be avoided in the future. Hopefully government officials will realize this sooner rather than later.