Coininsider just reported that one of the leading global digital asset exchanges BitHumb is planning to run an ICO for their own exchange token. The original source for the news is an article from the South Korean news outlet tokenpost.kr, which is owned by EconoTimes.

According to the local news outlet BitHumb decided that they will join the ranks of Binance, KuCoin and Huobi in issuing their own digital asset. Binance has previously issued Binance Coin (BNB), KuCoin has KuCoin Shares (KCS) and Huobi sold the Huobi Token (HT). These coins can enable various use cases for the customers like lower trading fees and the ability to vote on coin additions. The benefit for exchanges is significant as they can collect funding that is needed to expand to additional markets and will gain a tool that lets them reward users for certain activities without going through the legal hassle of rewarding them with actual fiat. A good example on the usefulness for this was the case where Binance offered 250,000 USD worth of BNB coins to that person who could lead them to the hackers who have been running phishing sites to gain access to customer accounts. Another major use case could be the transfer of value between the different subsidiaries of a company, in case they operate independent exchanges located in different markets.

BitHumb recently announced the establishment of a Singapore based corporation and is reportedly planning to launch the ICO through either the new offices or potentially via an other blockchain friendly market since South Korea is currently blocking these business practices. An interesting difference to the other exchange issued tokens is that here the target audience will be institutional investors instead of simple customers. This might be the result of the present global regulatory atmosphere, which is a lot more strict with products that are marketed towards average citizens.