SEOUL: A South Korean cryptocurrency exchange apologized on Saturday after mistakenly transferring more than $40 billion in bitcoin to users, prompting a brief selloff on the platform.
Bithumb said it accidentally sent 620,000 bitcoins, currently worth more than $40 billion, and blocked trading and withdrawals for the 695 affected users within 35 minutes after the error occurred on Friday.
According to local reports, Bithumb was meant to send about 2,000 won ($1.37) to each customer as part of a promotion, but mistakenly transferred roughly 2,000 bitcoins per user.
"We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience caused to our customers due to the confusion that occurred during the distribution process of this (promotional) event," Bithumb said in a statement.
The platform said it had recovered 99.7% of the bitcoins mistakenly sent and would use its own assets to fully cover the amount lost in the incident.
It admitted the error briefly caused "sharp volatility" in bitcoin prices on the platform as some recipients sold the tokens, adding that it brought the situation under control within five minutes.
Its charts showed the token's price briefly fell 17% to 81.1 million won on the platform late Friday.
Compensation promised
In a separate statement released later on Saturday, Bithumb said some trades were executed at unfavourable prices for users due to a price drop on Friday, including "panic selling".
The platform said it would compensate affected customers by covering the full price difference and a 10% bonus.
It estimated losses at about 1 billion won.
The platform earlier stressed that the incident was "unrelated to external hacking or security breaches".
Bitcoin, the world's largest cryptocurrency, sank this week, wiping out gains sparked by US President Donald Trump's victory in the 2024 presidential election.
