Bithumb, one of South Korea’s largest exchanges, deposited 620,000 Bitcoins (BTC) to hundreds of users due to an operational error while paying out event rewards.
As detailed by Bithumb, the incident was caused by an error while entering the amount during the airdrop. Instead of crediting 2,000 Korean won (approximately $1.5) per user, Some accounts received 2,000 Bitcoins each, artificially inflating the balances that existed only on the internal ledger.
Exchange authorities provided the following timeline of this episode (Korean local time):
- 19:00: Paid event reward to 695 users.
- 19:20: Certification of overpayment.
- 19:35: Start blocking transactions and withdrawals.
- 19:40: Lockdown complete.
The company indicated that it applied operational restrictions to affected users within 35 minutes of the mistaken delivery.
Similarly, this error caused selling pressure in Bithumb’s internal market. The BTC price on the platform temporarily fell to 81.1 million won. (approximately $55,000). It was a 10% deeper decline than other platforms, where prices were around $60,000.
The exchange guaranteed that this incident occurred Claims to be unrelated to computer attack and has recovered 618,212 BTC (99.7%) out of 620,000 BTC was deposited in error. Additionally, the company said it is working to strengthen internal controls to avoid new misconduct.
