Investing.com – Bitcoin and other major cryptocurrencies rose on Monday, while reports that South Korea's second largest crypto exchange Bithumb is expanding into Japan and Thailand raised some eyebrows.
Bitcoin was trading at $6,370.8 by 11:40PM ET (03:40 GMT) on the Bitfinex exchange, up 1.6% in the last 24 hours.
Ethereum, the world’s second largest cryptocurrency by market cap, gained 3.2% to $448.8 on the Bitifinex exchange.
XRP/USD’s XRP token was also up 1.9% to $0.44643 on the Poloniex exchange.
Meanwhile, Litecoin climbed 1.9% and traded at $78.6.
Bithumb announced over the weekend that it is currently working on obtaining regulatory approval from the financial regulators of both Thailand and Japan.
The South Korea-based exchange said it has already established a Thai subsidiary with registered capital of 3 million baht, and that it expects services in Thailand to beginning at the end of October.
Meanwhile, the exchange is also applying for approval from Japan’s FSA in order to open an exchange in the country in February 2019. “It plans to set up an exchange that supports the largest number of coins in Japan,” a local publication revealed.
Bithumb said it was looking for partners for its global expansion earlier this year.
“Bithumb is preparing exchange platforms for countries under the global expansion plan and we are looking for great and potential partners (corporation, entity or group) worldwide…The exchange platforms under final development stages are USD / JYP / EUR / CNY / INR / GBP / AUD / CAD / PHP / RUB and [there] will be more soon when there are any service demands,” The exchange said earlier this year.
South Korea media outlet reported that Bithumb has also established a subsidiary in Singapore and Britain. “We are considering establishing overseas subsidiaries in various countries such as the U.S. and Europe, but the time has not yet been determined,” the exchange clarified.