Korbit is first South Korean exchange to disclose full crypto reserves, post-FTX debacle

Danny Park

1 year ago

Korbit, one of South Korea’s five fully licensed cryptocurrency exchanges, announced Wednesday that it will reveal its full list of crypto reserves on its website, becoming the first local crypto company to do so.

Fast facts

Korbit users and visitors will be able to view a side-by-side comparison of the amount of tokens the exchange owns and the amount of customer deposits of a certain cryptocurrency. For instance, Korbit currently owns 6,884.6370 Bitcoins (BTC) while its users have deposited 6,849.8489 BTC – Korbit owns Bitcoin reserves that are 100.5% of user deposits.

Korbit will also share the list of wallet addresses owning BTC, Ether and XRP, allowing users to check their transaction history in the exchange. Korbit is currently collating the list of wallet addresses for remaining cryptocurrencies, according to the website.

Korbit’s proof of reserves will be updated daily, the exchange said.

The exchange also said on the website that customer deposits are stored separately from operational funds in Shinhan Bank, Korbit’s partner that provides users real-name deposit and withdrawal accounts per local anti-money laundering regulations.

Korbit – along with Upbit, Bithumb, Coinone and Gopax – are the only exchanges in South Korea that can service fiat-to-crypto transactions. While all five exchanges disclose their crypto ownerships every quarter with external auditing, local reports have highlighted suspicion that the exchanges only hold that amount of crypto during the auditing season.

Following reports that FTX allegedly used customer assets to bail out its sister company Alameda Research from solvency, several global exchanges such as Binance and Kraken have disclosed their proof of reserves.

FTX, once the world’s second largest crypto exchange, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the U.S. last week after battling a liquidity crunch over its token FTT.