South Korean Crypto Exchange Accidentally Gave Away $95 Billion in Bitcoin
Bithumb, a major South Korean crypto exchange, mistakenly credited around 672 users with 2,000 BTC each instead of a planned 2,000 won giveaway as part of its Random Box promotion. This error represented over $95 billion in phantom Bitcoin, though these credits were only internal ledger entries and not actual on-chain transfers. The error was detected and corrected within five minutes. Despite the short timeframe, users managed to sell more than $2 billion worth of the credited Bitcoin, causing a flash crash in Bitcoin’s price on Bithumb to $55,000, while other exchanges showed prices no lower than $60,000. Bithumb stated that the incident was due to an internal mistake, not external hacking, and assured that no actual customer assets were lost.
