Korean Cryptocurrency Exchange Accidentally Transfers $60B in Bitcoin

A South Korean Cryptocurrency Exchange Faces a Major Error

Bithumb, one of South Korea's leading cryptocurrency exchanges, has issued an apology after a significant error occurred during a promotional event. The platform mistakenly transferred over $60 billion worth of Bitcoin to users instead of the intended 2,000 won per customer.

The incident happened on Friday when Bithumb sent approximately 2,000 Bitcoin each to 695 users. This mistake caused temporary price drops and panic selling, leading to a brief 17% decrease in Bitcoin prices on the platform.

Within 35 minutes of discovering the error, Bithumb blocked trading and withdrawals for affected users. The company managed to recover 99.7% of the mistakenly sent bitcoins and has since promised full compensation, including a 10% bonus, for the losses estimated at around 1 billion won ($976,579).

Bithumb emphasized that the incident was unrelated to hacking or security breaches and quickly regained control over the situation.