Bithumb Apologizes After Erroneous $60 Billion Bitcoin Transfer

A South Korean cryptocurrency exchange, Bithumb, has issued an apology following an erroneous transfer of over $60 billion worth of Bitcoin to its users, an incident that briefly led to a sell-off on the platform.

Bithumb reported that it inadvertently sent 620,000 bitcoins, valued at over $60 billion at the time, to 695 affected users.

The error occurred on a Friday, prompting the platform to block trading and withdrawals for these users within 35 minutes.

The Nature of the Error

The exchange's intention was to distribute approximately 2,000 won ($1.95) to each customer as part of a promotional event. However, a critical error resulted in roughly 2,000 bitcoins being transferred to each user instead.

Swift Recovery and Assurance

Bithumb stated it recovered 99.7% of the mistakenly sent bitcoins and committed to using its own assets to cover any remaining lost amounts. The company confirmed that the incident was unrelated to external hacking or security breaches, emphasizing that it was an internal operational error.

Market Impact and User Compensation

The erroneous transfer caused temporary price volatility for Bitcoin on the Bithumb platform. Prices briefly decreased by 17% to 81.1 million won late Friday. The situation was brought under control within five minutes after the volatility began.

Bithumb acknowledged that some trades occurred at unfavorable prices for users due to the price drop, including instances of "panic selling."

The platform plans to compensate affected customers by covering the full price difference and providing an additional 10% bonus.

Estimated losses for Bithumb from this incident are approximately 1 billion won ($976,579).