A South Korean cryptocurrency exchange, Bithumb, has admitted to a massive operational error after mistakenly sending 2,000 bitcoins to some customers instead of 2,000 won (about $1.37).
As a result of the blunder, 695 customers briefly became multi-millionaires, with the total value of the mistaken transfers estimated at over $40 billion.
Bithumb said it detected the error within 35 minutes and immediately halted trading and withdrawals. According to the company, 99.7% of the wrongly sent bitcoins were successfully recovered.
The exchange stressed that the incident was not caused by hacking and that no security systems were breached.
South Korea’s financial regulator, the Financial Services Commission, has confirmed it will review the incident and carry out further investigations if any illegal activity is uncovered.
In an apology to users, Bithumb promised to strengthen customer trust and announced the following measures:
• ₩20,000 (about $13.66) compensation for affected users
• Waiver of some trading fees
• System upgrades and use of AI to detect abnormal transactions
The incident has once again sparked debate over tighter financial and crypto regulations in South Korea.
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