Crypto glitch makes 695 South Koreans billionaires overnight

How a South Korean crypto exchange accidentally minted hundreds of billionaires / Photo: Shutterstock, photo editor: Adelina Mamedova

South Korean cryptocurrency exchange Bithumb mistakenly transferred 620,000 bitcoins to users — coins worth more than $42 billion at current prices. The incident was caused by human error rather than a cyberattack.

An error costing billions

According to the South Korean newspaper Chosun, the mistake occurred during the distribution of rewards for participation in one of the exchange’s promotional events.

Instead of the South Korean won intended for users, the employee responsible for the payout mistakenly entered bitcoin into the system.

A total of 695 recipients received the cryptocurrency. Bithumb said the incident was an internal technical error and not related to any security breach.

Market reaction

The erroneous transfer immediately affected prices on the platform. As users began selling the unexpected bitcoin holdings in large volumes to cash out, the coin’s price on the exchange temporarily fell by about 20%.

Refunds

Exchange representatives moved quickly to correct the situation.

About 99.7% of the mistakenly transferred funds have already been returned to the exchange. The company said it is taking «prompt measures» to recover the remaining amount.