Cryptic error sees South Koreas Bithumb give away over US$40 billion
South Korean cryptocurrency exchange Bithumb said on Saturday it had accidentally given away more than US$40 billion worth of bitcoin to customers as promotional rewards, triggering a sharp sell-off on the exchange. Bithumb apologised for the mistake, which took place on Friday, and said it had recovered 99.7 per cent of the 620,000 bitcoin, worth…
The exchange had planned to distribute small cash rewards of 2,000 won (US$1.40) or more to each user as part of a promotional event, but winners received at least 2,000 bitcoin each instead, media reports said.
“We would like to make it clear that this incident is unrelated to external hacking or security breaches, and there are no problems with system security or customer asset management,” Bithumb said in a statement.
Bitcoin prices briefly slumped 17 per cent to 81.1 million won on Friday evening on Bithumb, charts from the exchange show. It later recovered and last traded at 104.5 million won.
Bithumb trails Upbit, a dominant player in the South Korean crypto space.
