Announcing a Crypto Exchanges Roundtable at HackIT

Who’s Going to Participate?

Members of the roundtable are going to include the following crypto exchanges: Bexam, EXMO, BTC Alpha, Kuna, CEX.io, and Crystal. Moreover, the roundtable will be joined by cybersecurity specialists and other market participants. The panel will be moderated by the CEO and Co-founder of Hacken, Dmytro Budorin.

What Are The Main Directions for The Discussion?

• Fake volume and transaction mining problems. Open discussion

CER’s Fake Volume and transaction mining reports have generated a hell of buzz in the media. CER’s team of analysts have shown that crypto exchanges often manipulate their data in order to attract as many customers as possible. It is therefore important to clearly identify these manipulations; then set and promote industry best practices to ensure the right vector for the future development of crypto exchanges and protect future crypto investors.

• Industry trends in cybersecurity. Open discussion

During the last two years, cryptocurrency exchanges were the subject of numerous cyber attacks. This results in irreparable damage to investors, traders, and damages people’s confidence in the whole crypto market. During 2018, more than $1.1 billion has been stolen from crypto exchanges. Undoubtedly, the reason is weak cybersecurity practices.  

One of the key criteria for investors in choosing an exchange is its technological advancement and cybersecurity level. However, its evaluation is a very complex and complicated issue, which should be addressed in advance, and then double-checked by specialized companies.

• KYC and AML procedures for crypto

Today, the verification of clients’ identity and money laundering prevention process procedures are poorly developed at the vast majority of exchanges. Perhaps, the reason is the fact that it reduces the number of users, new users. That’s why the whole crypto market is still considered to be barely legal, which in turn creates barriers for market development.
Even in late 2018, not all crypto exchanges conduct KYC procedures with their clients. The situation is even worse when it comes to AML.

Special attention is given to the fact that still there’s no exchange with proper procedures of identification of stolen coins on the market, which provides an opportunity for criminals to easily monetize their illegal activity. For example, Bitforex claims that it requires its users to pass KYC procedures, but in our research on Trans-mining fee, we found that in reality, they do not care about it. At HackIT, we will draft the necessary steps that market-players need to take in order to eliminate legal gaps on their platforms.

At the end of the round table, all participants will consider an opportunity of signing a memorandum and establishing an association of Security and Business Standards for Crypto Exchanges. We hope that it will make a significant impact on the future development of the industry.