A South Korean cryptocurrency exchange is in a race against time to recover over $40 billion in Bitcoin that was mistakenly sent to customers during a promotional event. The error occurred on February 6th when an employee entered the prize amounts in Bitcoin instead of Korean Won, resulting in 620,000 Bitcoin being credited to customers' accounts. This is equivalent to approximately 14 times the amount of Bitcoin the exchange owns.
The exchange, Bithumb, has corrected most of the mistaken credits, but around $9 million in Bitcoin remains unrecovered. Some recipients sold or withdrew the funds before the error was detected, leading to a brief price drop on the platform. Bithumb is now holding 'one-on-one persuasion' talks with customers who cashed out, urging them to return the Won equivalent voluntarily.
The incident has exposed 'structural problems' in how exchanges operate internal ledger systems, according to South Korea's Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) governor. Legal experts are also divided on whether recipients who sold the Bitcoin could face criminal prosecution, given a 2021 Supreme Court ruling that cryptocurrency does not constitute 'property' under Korean criminal law.
Bithumb has issued an apology and is taking steps to prevent recurrence by redesigning the asset payment process and enhancing internal control systems. The exchange emphasizes that the incident is unrelated to any external hacking or security breach and does not pose issues with system security or customer asset management.
