Two South Korean men have been implicated in a price manipulation case on cryptocurrency exchange Bithumb. The two men allegedly made nearly $5 million from manipulating the price of Fusionist's token, ACE.

According to a report published by local media on January 3 Digital assetsThe Virtual Assets Joint Investigation Team of the Seoul South District Prosecutor's Office arrested the 33-year-old CEO of virtual assets operator M, Lee, along with former employee of M, Kang, on charges of alleged market manipulation. Beethumb.

The pair were accused of price manipulation and violating South Korea's Virtual Asset User Protection Act.

Based on police investigations conducted by Chairman Park Geun-wook, the pair manipulated the price of the native token of Fusionist's blockchain-based gaming project, ACE. in South KoreaBithumb is the only known cryptocurrency exchange to list ACE for trading on the market.

This is the first case that South Korea's Financial Services Commission immediately classified as high priority, placing it on the "fast track" for processing since October 25, 2024, due to alleged violations of the Virtual Asset User Protection Act.

According to the press release, Lee and Kang allegedly sold about 1.22 million ACE tokens and made a profit of up to 7.1 billion won ($4.8 million) by placing fake buy and sell orders to inflate the price of ACE.

On July 22, 2024, the Attorney General's Office noted that the trading volume of the Fusionist token increased nearly 15-fold in one day to approximately 2.45 million. This type of suspicious business activity has alerted authorities to the scheme going on behind the scenes.

At the time of writing, the ACE Index was down slightly by 0.3% over the past 24 hours, according to Queen Gekko. Last week, the token rose 1.1%. However, over the past year, the Fusionist token has declined by approximately 75%. ACE has a market capitalization of approximately $92 million and a fully diluted valuation of $319 million.

Globally, ACE's trading volume reached $7.8 million over the past 24 hours. Trading volume decreased by 15% from the previous day, indicating decreased market activity.

ACE was first listed on Bithumb in August 2024 with a starting price of around 3,722 won ($2.53).