Bithumb Bitcoin Blunder Sends Shockwaves Through Market; Sends $ 44 Bn
South Korea’s cryptocurrency exchange Bithumb has mistakenly distributed nearly USD 44 billion worth of Bitcoin among its customers. According to a Reuters report, the error occurred on Friday during a promotional campaign, triggering sudden and heavy selling pressure on the exchange.
Bithumb said it had originally planned to give each user a minimum cash reward of 2,000 South Korean won (approximately USD 1.37). However, due to a technical error, selected customers each received at least 2,000 Bitcoins instead. At current market prices, the total value of the mistakenly distributed Bitcoin amounted to nearly USD 44 billion.
The company stated that within 35 minutes of the incident, transactions and withdrawals of 695 affected customers were temporarily suspended. It added that 99.7 percent of the distributed Bitcoin has already been successfully recovered.
Bithumb has apologized for the incident and clarified that it was not related to hacking or any security breach.
Following the incident, the price of Bitcoin on Bithumb fell by as much as 17 percent for a short period, although prices later partially recovered. In South Korea’s crypto market, Bithumb is currently the second-largest platform after Upbit.
DBTech/BMT/OR
