With regard to order book (order window) sharing between domestic virtual asset exchange Bithumb and an Australian virtual asset exchange, financial authorities summoned Lee Jae-won, CEO of Bithumb. Sharing order books can increase volume, but if shared with an unverified virtual asset exchange, there is a possibility that domestic customer information could be leaked overseas.
According to financial authorities and the virtual asset industry on the 23rd, the Korea Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) under the Financial Services Commission summoned Lee Jae-won, CEO of Bithumb, the previous day for questioning over Bithumb's order book sharing initiated with Australian virtual asset exchange Stellar. Financial authorities are checking whether there were procedural issues in the order book sharing process and are also looking into possible violations of the Act on Reporting and Using Specified Financial transaction Information (the Special Act).
On the afternoon of the previous day, Bithumb announced that it would share its order book with Stellar as it opened the Tether (USDT) market. An order book refers to buy and sell orders placed by users of a virtual asset exchange. Sharing it means exchanges share each other's orders, enabling transactions between Bithumb and Stellar customers and offering the advantage of greater liquidity as buy and sell orders increase.
However, financial authorities and the current Special Act impose strict regulations on order book sharing. This is because if customer orders are shared with an overseas virtual asset exchange, there is a possibility that domestic customer information could be leaked. To allow order book sharing under the Special Act, the relevant virtual asset business operators must obtain authorization, permission, registration, or filing in Korea or overseas and fulfill anti-money-laundering obligations.
For Bithumb to share an order book with Stellar, it must submit to the FIU a copy of Stellar's license issued by the Australian government and Bithumb's procedures and methods for verifying Stellar customer information. Bithumb says it proceeded with order book sharing in consultation with financial authorities, but authorities are reportedly concerned, viewing Bithumb's fulfillment of related procedures as insufficient.
Order book sharing is one of the methods virtual asset exchanges used to expand order pools before the enactment of the Special Act. Even then, financial authorities were concerned about customer information leaking externally, and the FIU allowed only highly limited order book sharing through measures that virtual asset business operators must implement under the Special Act.