SEOUL.— South Korean cryptocurrency platform Bithumb mistakenly gave away 620,000 bitcoins to its clients, although most of the assets have already been recovered, the company reported this Saturday in a statement.
“More than 99% of the overpayment amount has been recovered and, thanks to quick action, we have been able to minimize the damage to the client. We are also acting quickly to recover the remaining assets that have not yet been recovered,” the platform said on its website.
The incident occurred on Friday afternoon during a promotional event, when the company mistakenly transferred 620,000 bitcoins to 249 userswhich represents an average of about 2,490 bitcoins per personequivalent to around 141 million eurosaccording to reports in the South Korean press.
After detecting the flaw, the platform immediately suspended the transactions of the clients involved and managed to recover the majority of the bitcoins, including approximately 1,663 that had already been sold by some of the users who received them. Nevertheless, 125 bitcoins They remain unrecovered.
They give away bitcoins by mistake
“Bithumb takes this incident very seriously and will do everything possible to prevent its recurrence by redesigning the entire asset payment process and strengthening the internal control system. We will do everything possible to ensure that our users can rely on Bithumb’s services with peace of mind,” the company said.
According to the South Korean news agency Yonhap, the error originated when an employee wrote “BTC” (bitcoin) instead of “South Korean won” when processing the payment of a reward for event participants.
The incident caused a momentary drop in the price of bitcoin within the South Korean exchange platform, derived from sales made by some of the users who received the cryptocurrencies.
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