South Korean exchange Bithumb managed to turn a modest promotional giveaway into the digital equivalent of accidentally printing $44 billion and handing it out like party favors.
On Friday, the platform intended to sprinkle a little goodwill by awarding small cash prizes—around 2,000 Korean won, or roughly $1.40—to lucky participants in its latest customer rewards event. Instead, 695 users suddenly found their accounts credited with at least 2,000 bitcoins each. The total erroneous distribution? Some 620,000 BTC, valued at approximately $44 billion at prevailing prices.
The mistake triggered an immediate frenzy. Affected users, perhaps believing they had won the crypto lottery of a lifetime, began selling. Bitcoin’s price on Bithumb plunged sharply—reports suggest a drop of around 15-17% in minutes—while global markets barely blinked. The exchange sprang into action, halting trading and withdrawals for those accounts within 35 minutes.
Bithumb swiftly apologized and announced it had clawed back 99.7% of the phantom coins through internal controls. No external hack or security breach occurred, the company stressed; this was purely a glorious human error, likely a unit mix-up where “KRW” became “BTC” in the reward configuration.
The remaining sliver—about 1,860 BTC, worth roughly $130 million—remains unaccounted for, with some sales having gone through before the freeze. Regulators at the Financial Services Commission were less amused.
They called the episode a glaring demonstration of vulnerabilities in virtual asset operations and promptly announced on-site inspections for Bithumb and potentially other exchanges to scrutinize internal controls, asset holdings, and overall safeguards.
Imagine waking up to find you’ve become an overnight multi-millionaire, only to have the windfall evaporate faster than free samples at a blockchain conference. For those 695 users, the brief taste of billionaire status must have felt like winning the jackpot in a dream—then realizing the ticket was printed on disappearing ink.
The incident underscores a timeless truth in crypto: fortunes can appear and vanish with bewildering speed, often thanks to nothing more exotic than a tired employee and a misplaced decimal—or in this case, a misplaced currency code. While most promotions hand out coffee vouchers, Bithumb accidentally handed out generational wealth… briefly.
South Korea’s watchdogs now loom larger over the industry, reminding everyone that even in the wild west of digital assets, basic bookkeeping still matters. Bithumb’s team probably spent the weekend double-checking every zero and rethinking career choices.
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