Korean crypto exchange Bithumb has managed to recover almost all of the over $40 billion mistakenly distributed to users as part of a promotional initiative. This incident occurred shortly after the company announced a campaign on February 5, offering new registrants ₩100,000 (approximately $68) in benefits.
The promotional plan included an initial ₩20,000 ($13) payment deposited into user accounts following their first transaction, with additional bonuses tied to further actions like verification and coupon entry. However, a significant error led to 620,000 bitcoin (valued at around $42 billion) being credited to the accounts of 695 users the next day, resulting in an average windfall of about $61 million per user.
Immediate Recovery Actions
Bithumb quickly recognized the error, stating that it made hundreds of users unexpectedly wealthy within just 35 minutes. Following this, the platform implemented measures to recover the overpaid assets, claiming that 99.7 percent of the excess bitcoin was retrieved on the same day. The remaining 0.3 percent (1,788 BTC) that had been sold was covered by the company’s own assets, ensuring that customer deposits remained intact.
Compensation and Customer Assurance
In response to the incident, Bithumb’s CEO Lee Jae-won announced a compensation scheme for affected users. All customers connected to the platform at the time of the error will receive ₩20,000, and those who sold bitcoin at a reduced price due to the incident will be reimbursed for their selling price plus an additional 10 percent of the transaction’s value. Additionally, trading fees for all tokens will be suspended for seven days starting February 9.
Regulatory Scrutiny and Future Safeguards
To further bolster customer confidence, Bithumb has established a Customer Protection Fund of ₩100 billion ($68.5 million) to safeguard users in case of future incidents. The company is also developing an Anomalous Transaction Detection and Automatic Blocking AI System named Safe Guard to prevent abnormal transactions. Despite these measures, regulatory bodies are closely monitoring the situation. An emergency meeting was convened by Lee Eog-weon, chairman of the Korean Financial Services Commission, to discuss Bithumb’s actions and the implications for user safety and market stability.
While Bithumb asserts that the overpayment was purely an error and not a result of a cyberattack, the incident has drawn attention from financial regulators who plan to conduct further investigations into user damages and the exchange’s operational practices.
This article was produced by NeonPulse.today using human and AI-assisted editorial processes, based on publicly available information. Content may be edited for clarity and style.
