Security Current Affairs

Bitkub's $50M Cover-Up: When Hiding a Hack Goes Wrong

2026-07-29

Thailand's SEC just dropped a bomb on Bitkub. The exchange, two former directors, and five years of silence walked straight into criminal charges for allegedly burying a 1.7 billion baht ($50 million) cyberattack. The theft happened in May 2021. The complaint? Filed July 23, 2026. Prompt work, that.

Here's the accusation: Sakolkorn Sakavee and Thaweesap Rawan cooked the books. From May to October 2021, Bitkub's daily filings showed no material change in assets. Nothing. Meanwhile, hackers had walked off with 16 different types of digital assets. The SEC reckons this was a deliberate breach of Thailand's Digital Asset Business Decree. False statements. Deceived regulators. The whole lot.

Bitkub tells a different story. The company claims it hid the details to prevent panic. A bank run would've crushed them whilst they scrambled to replace the stolen assets. Co-founders apparently threw their own money at the problem, buying replacement crypto in the same currencies and values. Customers got made whole. Everything was allegedly backed and safe. Only the regulators got the dark version.

One of the directors folded. Sakolkorn posted a Facebook video taking sole responsibility, which is either admirable or incriminating depending on your mood. He altered the filings himself without telling anyone else. Feared a collapse. Withheld news of the hack. Apologised, resigned from every board, promised to cooperate. The Bangkok Post got translation duties.

The replacement process didn't start until 31 October 2021. Nearly four months of pretending everything was fine whilst tens of millions in stolen crypto weren't. That gap is the whole problem.

If this sticks, the penalties are ugly. Thailand's Digital Asset Business Decree section 88(2) hands out five to ten years in prison plus fines between 500,000 and 1,000,000 baht for falsifying corporate documents to deceive anyone. That's serious weight. But the case hasn't reached court yet. Police and prosecutors still have to decide whether to proceed. No guilt here yet. Just allegations and a referral.

Timing is awkward for Bitkub. The company shelved its Stock Exchange of Thailand IPO in November 2025 and now eyes a $200 million offering in Hong Kong instead. International expansion was the plan. Criminal charges investigating corporate fraud don't help. They actively hurt. Regulators everywhere notice these things.

The regulatory action could blow that Hong Kong deal right apart. Or it could become a manageable reputational cost if the company cooperates fully and the case resolves favourably. Hard to know yet. What's certain: five years of silence didn't solve anything. It just delayed the reckoning.

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