- South Korean exchange Bithumb erroneously credited 695 users with 2,000 BTC (worth $142 million each) instead of a 2,000 won ($1.37) reward.
- The internal ledger error, corrected within five minutes, still allowed users to sell over $2 billion worth of the phantom Bitcoin, crashing Bithumb‘s Bitcoin Price to $55,000.
- The exchange has recovered nearly all of the erroneously credited funds and stated the incident was not due to a hack or security breach.
A major South Korean cryptocurrency exchange accidentally gifted hundreds of users billions in Bitcoin this week, causing a dramatic flash crash on its own platform. Instead of distributing a small cash reward, Bithumb mistakenly credited 695 users with 2,000 BTC apiece, users reported, a total error of about $43 billion at current prices. The blunder occurred during a “Random Box” giveaway, according to local reports, where most recipients were supposed to receive 2,000 won.
However, the deposits were only recorded on the exchange’s internal ledger and did not involve real on-chain Bitcoin transfers. Despite this, several users immediately attempted to sell the mistakenly awarded funds within the five-minute window before the error was fixed. This rapid sell-off triggered a sharp Bitcoin price crash exclusively on Bithumb, plummeting to $55,000 while the global price remained above $70,000.
Bithumb stated in a blog post that it quickly detected and corrected the irregularity. “The Bitcoin price temporarily fluctuated sharply as some accounts that received the Bitcoin sold it,” the company explained. The exchange insisted the incident was unrelated to any external Hacking or security compromise.
Consequently, the company has recovered 618,212 BTC of the credited funds and clawed back 93% of the sold assets. “We are also taking swift action to recover the remaining unrecovered assets,” Bithumb said. The firm pledged to cover any shortfall with company assets and redesign its payment processes to prevent recurrence.
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