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Monday, February 23, 2026
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Bithumb Founder and Former CEO Daesik Kim Returns to Disrupt the Payment Industry

Daesik Kim, the founder and former CEO of Bithumb—the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange—is returning to the payments industry as the Chief Cryptocurrency Officer of Bezant, a payment protocol and cryptocurrency for the digital entertainment and e-commerce sectors.

Bezant has already raised US$6.28 million in its private token sale, and is targeting a total ICO of US$40 million. Kim, who oversaw the day-to-day operations of Bithumb, including an all-time high daily trading volume of over US$6 billion (as of January 13, 2018), will drive business, product, strategy, and partnerships at Bezant.

Kim, CCO of Bezant, said, “Digital entertainment and ecommerce are expanding faster in emerging markets such as Southeast Asia, more so than in the US and China over the next four years. Developed markets are dominated by a few incumbents that charge high commission fees, offering limited payment options, which are plagued by high exchange fees, bank charges, and payment delays.

Bezant utilizes a private blockchain network which enables fluid payments and makes microtransactions secure, reliable, transparent, and cost-efficient. This protocol avoids the common problems associated with cryptocurrencies leading to higher fees and slower transaction speeds.

With 600 million people in Southeast Asia, a large majority of which are unbanked, Bezant aims to disrupt digital payments and content distribution by applying blockchain and cryptocurrency to eliminate these barriers for buyers and sellers. Bezant’s protocol will minimize transaction fees, provide a decentralised rewards mechanism for sellers to build customer loyalty, establish a transparent rating system on sellers, and enable customers to make borderless payments using their local method,” Kim added.

Bezant features an experienced development team with product and software engineers from well-known companies such as Ebay, Naver, and Kakao Corp. Bezant has also attracted high-profile advisors and global business development leaders who bring their expertise from the cryptocurrency, payments, digital content, and finance industries to the company.

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