The exchange had intended to give out a total of 620,000 won ($423.5) through its "random box" event on Friday evening, with individual prizes ranging from 2,000 to 50,000 won. Instead, each recipient received an average of 2,490 bitcoin, valued at about 244 billion won per person based on the prevailing price of 98 million won per coin.
Bithumb said it detected the error within 20 minutes and moved swiftly to freeze trading and withdrawals, completing the lockdown by 7:40 p.m. The exchange said it recovered 99.7 percent of the misallocated bitcoin, or 618,212 coins, almost immediately.
Some recipients rushed to sell their windfall before the freeze took effect, briefly crashing bitcoin's price on the platform to 81.11 million won — a sharp drop from its market price. The exchange said the price recovered to normal levels within five minutes and that its automated safeguards prevented cascading liquidations.
Bithumb said about 125 bitcoin worth of assets, totaling roughly 13.3 billion won, remained unrecovered as of Saturday morning, though it noted that no funds had been transferred to external wallets.
"The mispayment incident is entirely unrelated to any external hacking or security breach, and there are no issues whatsoever with system security or customer asset management," the company said in a public apology.
The mishap fueled speculation among market watchers, who questioned how Bithumb could distribute 620,000 bitcoin when it held only 42,619 coins in custody as of the end of the third quarter last year. The company pushed back, saying wallet balances are maintained in strict alignment with customer account records through rigorous accounting controls.
South Korea's Financial Services Commission and the Financial Supervisory Service immediately launched an on-site inspection into the incident to examine its cause and assess whether any regulatory violations occurred.
Copyright ⓒ Aju Press All rights reserved.
