Khaberni - "Bithumb", a South Korean cryptocurrency trading platform, announced today, Saturday, that it mistakenly transferred 620,000 Bitcoins to user accounts before it was able to recover most of them.
According to "Bithumb" (Bithumb), at around 7:00 PM yesterday, Friday, it mistakenly transferred 620,000 Bitcoins to the accounts of 249 participants in a promotional offer. Each user received an average of about 2490 Bitcoins, equivalent to approximately 244 billion won (166 million US dollars).
After discovering the error, "Bithumb" temporarily suspended trading and withdrawals from the accounts of the affected users at exactly 7:40 PM. The platform clarified that it immediately recovered 618,212 Bitcoins and recovered 93% of the 1788 Bitcoins that had already been sold by users. Thus, only 125 Bitcoins could not be recovered.
The company stated that the incident was due to a human error, explaining that it occurred when a "Bithumb" employee accidentally entered the "Bitcoin" unit instead of the "Korean Won" when depositing rewards for participants in the promotional offer.
This error caused a slight drop in the price of Bitcoin on the "Bithumb" platform, as some users began selling the digital currency they had received.
The South Korean Financial Supervisory Service sent a team to investigate the incident. The authority will examine user protection measures and the possibility of fully recovering the funds mistakenly transferred.
