Bithumb error: 86 customers sell bitcoins sent by mistake

A total of 86 customers sold some or all of the bitcoins that were mistakenly transferred to them by Bithumb last week, South Korean financial authorities said on Monday.

The incident occurred on Friday during a promotional event, when the cryptocurrency exchange accidentally distributed more than US$40 billion worth of bitcoins to customers, briefly turning some recipients into multi-millionaires, News.Az reports, citing Yonhap.

Bithumb had originally planned to provide small cash rewards totaling 620,000 won (about US$423.6) to 249 customers. However, due to an operational error, the exchange instead transferred 620,000 bitcoins, prompting an immediate sell-off by some users.

The exchange halted related transactions at around 7:40 p.m. on Friday and began efforts to retrieve the wrongly distributed bitcoins.

According to officials, Bithumb has already recovered most of the bitcoins that were sold but has yet to reclaim 125 bitcoins, valued at approximately 13 billion won. Of that amount, about 3 billion won has reportedly already been withdrawn and transferred to customers’ bank accounts, while the remaining 10 billion won was used to purchase other virtual assets.

An exchange official said Bithumb is contacting customers individually who sold the mistakenly sent bitcoins and is urging them to return the funds, while also coordinating methods to recover the remaining assets.

News.Az 

By Nijat Babayev