South Korea’s crypto exchange typo sparks $166M bitcoin giveaway
South Korean crypto exchange Bithumb announced Saturday it has retrieved nearly all of the 620,000 bitcoins accidentally sent to 249 users during a promotional event, Yonhap reports.
The error briefly pushed down bitcoin prices after recipients rushed to sell.
The mistake occurred when an employee entered “BTC” instead of “Korean won” as the reward unit, resulting in massive unintended transfers – averaging 2,490 bitcoins (worth 244 billion won or $166 million) per user. Bithumb quickly froze accounts and recovered 618,212 bitcoins, along with 93 percent of the 1,788 coins sold. About 125 bitcoins remain unrecovered.
The Financial Supervisory Service has launched an inspection into Bithumb’s handling of the incident and its safeguards for users.
Earlier, Qazinform News Agency reported that one of South Korea’s largest e-commerce companies, Coupang, had confirmed a large-scale leak of personal data that affected 33.7 million users.
