SEOL: Imagine Sending $400 but Accidentally Transferring $40 Billion , What Happens Next?
It sounds unbelievable, but that’s exactly what happened to Bithumb, South Korea’s second-largest cryptocurrency exchange. The platform is now desperately trying to recover cryptocurrency worth over $40 billion that was mistakenly sent to users.
What went wrong? Bithumb accidentally sent 620,000 Bitcoin (BTC) instead of 620,000 Korean Won (KRW) to users. At the time of the error, those 620,000 BTC were valued at approximately $42 billion.
According to the company’s official statement: Most of the mistakenly credited Bitcoin has already been recovered. However, around $90 million worth of BTC remains unrecovered because some users sold the coins or withdrew the funds before the mistake was discovered.
How did it happen? The incident occurred on February 6 during a promotional event. A Bithumb employee was supposed to distribute reward payments of 620,000 KRW (about $423) each to 695 eligible users.
Instead, due to a critical error, the system sent 620,000 BTC to those users.
Out of the 695 recipients, 249 users opened their reward boxes and claimed the mistakenly sent Bitcoin.
Lee Chang-jin, Governor of South Korea’s Financial Supervisory Service (FSS), described the situation as “devastating” for users who sold the Bitcoin they received by mistake.
He pointed out that Bitcoin prices have surged significantly in recent days, amplifying the scale of the loss for the exchange.
Experts warn that users who sold the erroneously received Bitcoin could face criminal charges, as South Korean criminal law does not currently recognize cryptocurrency as having legal tender status in the same way as fiat currency.
Current status according to Bithumb:
- The exchange has so far recovered 99.7 BTC by internally reversing the erroneous reward transactions and sending apology messages.
- However, 86 users had already sold a total of 1,788 BTC.
Bithumb is now contacting these users one by one, requesting that they return the equivalent value of the Bitcoin they sold back to the company.
