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Bithumb Recovers 99.7% of Errant 620,000-Bitcoin Payout as South Korea Opens Inquiry

The exchange attributes the giveaway to an internal operational error, not a security breach.

Overview

  • During a Friday promotion, customers were mistakenly credited with bitcoin instead of a planned 2,000 won reward, with reports citing allocations of roughly 2,000 BTC per user.
  • Bithumb said it restricted trading and withdrawals for 695 affected accounts within 35 minutes and later recovered 99.7% of about 620,000 BTC, pledging company funds to cover the remainder.
  • South Korea’s Financial Supervisory Service held an emergency meeting Saturday and announced an investigation, noting any sign of illegality could trigger formal probes.
  • The company stated there was no external hack or system security breach, characterizing the incident as an internal operational lapse.
  • Remedies include a 20,000 won payment to users active during the incident, temporary trading fee waivers, and upgrades to verification systems with AI tools to flag abnormal transactions.