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South Korean crypto exchange races to recover $40bn of bitcoin sent to customers by mistake
| United Kingdom | business

South Korean crypto exchange races to recover $40bn of bitcoin sent to customers by mistake

#Bithumb #Bitcoin #South Korea #Crypto Exchange #Clerical Error #Digital Assets #Blockchain

📌 Key Takeaways

  • Bithumb accidentally sent 620,000 bitcoins to users instead of 620,000 Korean won.
  • The total value of the mistake peaked at over $40 billion based on current market rates.
  • Most of the erroneous transactions have been reversed, but $9 million is still missing.
  • The incident was caused by a human clerical error during a promotional marketing event.

📖 Full Retelling

Bithumb, South Korea’s second-largest cryptocurrency exchange, initiated an emergency recovery operation in Seoul this week after a staff member accidentally distributed 620,000 bitcoins—valued at over $40 billion—to customers' accounts during a promotional event held last week. This massive financial blunder occurred when the employee mistakenly credited users with the digital currency instead of the intended 620,000 South Korean won, a sum equivalent to only a few hundred U.S. dollars. The exchange issued a formal apology for the administrative oversight, which briefly placed a significant portion of the global bitcoin supply in the hands of a small group of retail investors. The error took place during what was meant to be a routine marketing campaign aimed at increasing user engagement via modest cash rewards. However, the confusion between the domestic currency unit and the world's largest cryptocurrency created a massive discrepancy in the firm's ledgers. Upon realizing the magnitude of the error, Bithumb executives immediately froze withdrawal capabilities for affected accounts to prevent the permanent loss of the digital assets, which represent a staggering market value far exceeding the company's total capitalization. While Bithumb has reported that it successfully reversed the majority of the mistaken credits, the exchange confirmed that approximately 13 billion Korean won, or roughly $9 million, remains outstanding and has yet to be recovered. The company is currently working with legal experts and reaching out to individual users to secure the return of the remaining funds. This incident highlights ongoing concerns regarding the operational security and internal controls within the high-stakes cryptocurrency industry, particularly in South Korea's highly active trading market. Regulators in South Korea have been closely monitoring the situation to ensure that the exchange complies with financial safety protocols. Bithumb has assured its user base that its own holdings and the assets of uninvolved customers remain secure and unaffected by the glitch. Nevertheless, the scale of the potential loss serves as a stark reminder of the volatility and technical risks associated with managing digital asset platforms where a single clerical error can trigger multi-billion dollar consequences.

🏷️ Themes

Cryptocurrency, Finance, Technology

📚 Related People & Topics

South Korea

South Korea

Country in East Asia

South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the southern half of the Korean Peninsula and borders North Korea along the Korean Demilitarized Zone, with the Yellow Sea to the west and the Sea of Japan to the east. Like North Korea, South Korea claims...

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Bitcoin

Bitcoin

Decentralized digital cryptocurrency

Bitcoin (abbreviation: BTC; sign: ₿) is the first decentralized cryptocurrency. Based on a free-market ideology, bitcoin was invented in 2008 when an unknown person published a white paper under the pseudonym of Satoshi Nakamoto. Use of bitcoin as a currency began in 2009, with the release of its op...

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Bithumb

Bitcoin exchange based in South Korea

Bithumb (Korean: 빗썸) is a South Korean cryptocurrency exchange. Founded in 2014, with headquarters in Seoul, it initially went by the name Xcoin, but was rebranded as Bithumb in 2015.

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📄 Original Source Content
<p>Bithumb has apologised for staff error that sent customers 620,000 bitcoins instead of 620,000 Korean won, equivalent to a few hundred US dollars</p><p>South Korea’s second-largest cryptocurrency exchange is scrambling to recover more than $40bn of cryptocurrency after accidentally crediting customers with 620,000 bitcoins during a promotional event last week.</p><p>Bithumb said it had corrected most of the mistaken credits, but that about 13bn won ($9m) remained

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