Developing Bithumb Hack Story: Fake News, Insider Job or Back Tax Bill Ploy

About three and half hours ago we reported that Bithumb had been hacked to the tune of estimated $30-32 million worth in cryptocurrencies.

The announcement was made via the official Bithumb Exchange twitter page, but as you can see that has since been deleted and removed with no explanation which has definitely allowed for the memes, theories and FUD to set in.

So now the official tweet got deleted… potential twitter account takeover, or the hack is worse than $30M? https://t.co/wNENOyYavA https://t.co/sPWfIkIaWR pic.twitter.com/syRQ6NMVZK

— Tuur Demeester (@TuurDemeester) June 20, 2018

Or maybe there was no hack and they just misplaced those $30 million worth of coins. Why always so negative? 🙃

— WhalePanda (@WhalePanda) June 20, 2018

Then, crypto-twitter discovered that Bithumb had to recently pay upwards of $28 million in back taxes after being found not guilty regarding tax evasion but was left with a hefty fine to pay. Korea's eToday website reported that the National Tax Service was attempting to collect the funds promptly, stating:

“The [National Tax Service] has conducted a tax investigation against Bithumb for the 2014 to 2017 business years. I know that Bithumb has decided to pay the related taxes without any objection to the imposed tax amount.” “However, despite the fact that a large amount of tax was imposed, no charge of tax evasion was found, so prosecution charges against tax portal were not carried out,” the official added.

This becomes intriguing given the fact that the range amounts of back taxes and stolen cryptocurrency funds are near the same for Bithumb's situation.

Then, there is this:

Three days ago, June 17th, @BithumbOfficial upgraded their security system and transferred all of their assets to cold storage.

They were hacked on June 18th.

Wait what? https://t.co/O1Rafi7ufn

— Heslin Kim @BlockchainROK (@BlockchainROK) June 20, 2018

There seems to be quite a mystery unraveling before our eyes as to what the biggest cryptocurrency exchange in Korea is up to here. As we reported about the initial announcement, Bithumb is being very gracious in their approach by reimbursing effected users and investors on the trading platform – but was reported they earned over $300 million but is their third reported hack in the last year.

It was also shown everything seemed to be stable with Bithumb's trading volume in that it was above $380 million US.

So what do you guys think? Is it fake news? Did Bithumb get hacked and have $30 Million in crypto funds stolen? Or are they trying to swing the system and pay back-taxes?

Why remove the tweet after it has went viral and dozens of news media outlets have reported the story? Was the amount worse than thought or are there too many holes to plug in the story that was not well thought out or could be easily traced back to the root cause?

Time will tell, as always, be sure to check back in as we find out more facts and figures regarding Bithumb's alleged exchange hack.