While most companies worry about losing money, South Korean crypto exchange Bithumb managed to accidentally give away a staggering 620,000 Bitcoin—worth up to $44 billion—during what should have been a simple promotional event.
Talk about a typo with consequences. The error occurred when an employee entered “Bitcoin” instead of “won” as the reward unit, turning what should have been $1.40 rewards into fortunes.
One small dropdown menu mistake, 620,000 Bitcoin later. The most expensive typo in crypto history.
The blunder sent 695 customers unexpected crypto windfalls, with some lucky individuals receiving at least 2,000 Bitcoin each. Oops. The February 6th mistake triggered a 17% Bitcoin price drop on the platform as panic selling ensued. Not exactly the kind of market volatility traders had in mind.
Bithumb’s phantom transactions represented about 3% of the entire global Bitcoin supply. Let that sink in. The company had only 42,794 Bitcoin in actual holdings before the incident.
So they fundamentally gave away 12-13 times more Bitcoin than they owned. Math is hard, apparently.
Within 35 minutes, the exchange restricted trading and withdrawals for affected accounts. Quick thinking, but not quick enough. About 125 Bitcoin (worth $9 million) remain unrecovered from a small group who managed to sell or transfer their unexpected windfall.
This isn’t the first such error in South Korean financial history. Samsung Securities made a similar mistake in 2018, issuing shares instead of won.
Seems like confusing currency units is becoming a national pastime.
Bithumb has publicly apologized, insisting no security breaches occurred. Just human error. The company has covered remaining losses with corporate funds. This incident highlights why cryptocurrency exchanges should implement segregation of duties as a critical operational risk control. The exchange also announced compensation measures for customers affected by the incident, including trading fee waivers and cash rewards.
Meanwhile, South Korean regulators are reviewing oversight procedures with potential on-site inspections looming.
The incident has exposed structural vulnerabilities in crypto exchange operations. The Financial Services Commission Chairman Lee Eog-won convened an emergency review meeting to address the failures in exchange systems. Despite recovering 99.7% of the excess Bitcoin, the error revealed how easily systems can fail.
For Bithumb, it’s an expensive lesson in double-checking dropdown menus.
