Imagine this: a South Korean crypto giant accidentally gives $40 billion in Bitcoin to random people, making regular traders fake billionaires for about 20 minutes. Bithumb, one of Korea’s biggest exchanges, was supposed to give a small promo reward of 2,000 Korean won (about $1.37) to some people on Friday night. But one of the workers made a mistake and gave each account 2,000 real BTC instead. Across 695 users? That’s 620,000 BTC, which is $40.3 billion at $65,000 per coin. Total chaos.
It happened at 7 p.m. local time. Logins showed crazy balances, with tens of millions of BTC for normal people. Some people panicked and tried to sell quickly, which caused order books to get stuck and volatility to rise. Bithumb saw the mistake in 20 minutes and stopped trading, withdrawals, and transfers for those accounts 35 minutes later. They got back 99.7% of the money—over 617,914 BTC—by reversing deals with users who didn’t sell. A tiny piece is left over from the quick-flippers.
In response, CEO Lee Jae-won said, “It was a pure human mistake in the reward setup—no hack, no breach.” Your money is safe. They promised that wallets and custody were very safe. Every active user gets 20,000 won ($13.66), a month of free trades, and VIP promo access to make things easier. Who lost out in the chaos? Full refunds with proof of time.
Regulators jumped on it right away. South Korea’s FSS held an emergency meeting on Saturday and called it a “major ops fail.” They’re looking into carelessness and could impose fines or limits if it smells bad. This is on top of Seoul’s crackdown on cryptocurrency, which includes real-name checks and anti-money laundering rules after the 2024 mess. Bithumb is all in on working together, adding AI alerts and multiple checks to avoid future mistakes.
It’s crazy how a simple mistake, like typing “KRW” instead of “BTC,” could cost billions. Screams for automatic checks, double-signoffs, and practice payouts. Bithumb handles 20% of Korea’s crypto volume, but there wasn’t a big splash in the market because of the quick freeze. People who were good and stayed calm loved the recovery. People who lost money online yelled “theft” and made memes about it, calling it the “$40B glitch giveaway.” Flippers are getting ready to sue.
Hits home in Asia’s crypto hotspot—15 million Koreans own crypto (30% of the population!) and run places like Bithumb and Upbit. With BTC going down all over the world, this shakes faith and pushes for insurance pots like those in TradFi. Some people think Bithumb’s compo and upgrades set the standard, but others say “we’ll see.” “Trust first, growth second,” Lee said. What traders should remember: Check your stack twice, don’t YOLO sell glitches, and remember that exchanges make a lot of mistakes. It’s the wild west of crypto, with a billion dollars on the line.
