Overview
- Bithumb, which filed Thursday for a provisional seizure, is seeking to freeze about 7 BTC that users have not returned after February’s mistaken credits.
- The mix-up began Feb. 6 when a staffer entered BTC instead of KRW in a promo payout, crediting 620,000 bitcoin before the exchange halted activity within minutes.
- Before the freeze, users sold about 1,788 BTC on Bithumb, which drove the BTC–KRW price down roughly 15%, and the exchange later recovered 99.7% and covered the shortfall with company reserves.
- Legal experts say recipients must give back mistaken transfers under unjust enrichment rules, and those who sold may need to repurchase bitcoin at higher prices to repay the equivalent amount.
- South Korea’s Financial Services Commission now requires all exchanges to reconcile internal ledgers with actual asset holdings every five minutes, a new check prompted by the incident.