On Friday, Bithumb—the second-largest cryptocurrency exchange in South Korea—initiated a routine promotional payout when an operational mistake caused the platform to distribute roughly 620,000 BTC to participating customers instead of the intended 2,000 won ($1.37) reward. Within 35 minutes, the exchange restricted trading and withdrawals for the 695 affected accounts to contain the fallout.
Exchange officials issued a formal apology, clarifying that the error was due to a misconfiguration of payment units rather than a security breach. Bithumb staff worked around the clock, deploying internal cold-wallet protocols to reclaim 618,212 BTC and negotiating recoveries on an additional 1,788 BTC sold by recipients, achieving a 99.7 percent recovery rate.
The mishap briefly triggered a 17 percent drop in bitcoin price on the platform, plunging from 104.5 million won to 81.1 million won. Panic selling by users contributed to the volatility, and some trades executed during the incident were at sharply unfavorable rates. Bithumb has pledged to compensate any customer who suffered losses from forced panic exits by covering the difference plus a 10 percent premium.
South Korea’s Financial Services Commission has announced a review of Bithumb’s internal controls and oversight mechanisms to prevent recurrence. Industry experts note that while human errors in payout configurations are rare at large exchanges, this event underscores the need for multiple confirmation checks in threshold-based payment systems.
Despite the disruption, Bithumb’s rapid containment and extensive recovery efforts have been praised. The exchange plans to overhaul its payout engine with enhanced validation layers and automated anomaly detection, aiming to restore public confidence in its operational security and maintain its competitive leadership in Asia’s crypto markets.
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