**Oops! South Korean Crypto Exchange Accidentally Hands Out $40B in Bitcoin**
A jaw-dropping error has sent shockwaves through the cryptocurrency market, leaving a trail of bewildered customers and a battered exchange in its wake. Bithumb, South Korea's second-largest cryptocurrency exchange, accidentally credited hundreds of customer accounts with over $40 billion worth of Bitcoin – an astonishing mistake during a promotional giveaway meant to reward prizes worth just a few cents each.
It happened on Friday when a Bithumb employee was tasked with distributing the giveaway prizes totaling 620,000 Korean won (about $425) as part of a "random box" event. However, in a catastrophic blunder, the staffer mistakenly entered the payouts in Bitcoin instead of won, resulting in 620,000 bitcoins being credited across hundreds of customer accounts – a massive sum worth more than $40 billion at the time.
Only 249 of the 695 qualifying customers opened their prize boxes and received the erroneous payouts, according to regulators. At the time, Bitcoin was trading at just under $70,000 per coin, meaning the mistaken credits briefly transformed recipients into multimillionaires on paper. The amounts credited far exceeded Bithumb's actual Bitcoin reserves, and the company detected the error within minutes.
Bithumb moved quickly to halt trading and withdrawals on affected accounts within about 35 minutes, according to regulators. However, that short window was enough to spark chaos in the market. Some users sold the phantom Bitcoin on the exchange before controls were fully in place, triggering a sharp, localized plunge in prices on Bithumb. At one point, Bitcoin prices on the platform fell as much as 15% to 17%, significantly below prices on rival South Korean exchanges.
Financial authorities later revealed that 86 customers managed to sell about 1,788 bitcoins before the freeze took effect. Some of the proceeds were withdrawn to bank accounts, while other funds were used to purchase different cryptocurrencies. Bithumb has since recovered 99.7% of the mistakenly credited Bitcoin by reversing internal ledger entries and persuading users to return the assets.
About 125 bitcoins – worth roughly $9 million – remain unrecovered, according to multiple reports. The exchange has said it plans to absorb the loss. In a public apology, Bithumb stressed that the incident was not the result of hacking or a security breach. "We want to make it clear that this matter has nothing to do with external hacking or security breaches, and there is no problem with system security or customer asset management," the company stated.
The incident highlights the importance of human error in the world of cryptocurrency trading. While exchanges have implemented numerous measures to prevent such mistakes, even the most advanced systems can be vulnerable to human fallibility. As the market continues to grow and evolve, it remains to be seen how Bithumb will recover from this embarrassing blunder.