In a catastrophic blunder that defies belief, South Korean crypto exchange Bithumb accidentally credited users with 620,000 bitcoins—worth over $40 billion—during what should have been a routine promotional event. The digital disaster occurred on February 6, 2026, when an employee made a mind-numbingly simple error: typing “bitcoin” instead of “won” as the distribution unit. Oops.
What was supposed to be a modest $1.50 giveaway suddenly turned into approximately 2,000 bitcoins per customer. Talk about inflation. Between 249 and 695 accounts received this accidental windfall, creating phantom transactions that exceeded Bithumb’s actual holdings by 12-13 times. The exchange only possessed around 46,000 real bitcoins. Math is hard, apparently.
A $1.50 promotion morphed into a 2,000 bitcoin giveaway per user, creating digital wealth that didn’t actually exist.
Some lucky recipients didn’t waste time. They immediately started selling their unexpected fortune, causing Bitcoin’s price on Bithumb to plummet 17% within minutes. The exchange finally noticed something was amiss and halted trading within 35 minutes of detection. Too little, too late?
Bithumb managed to recover 99.7% of the erroneously credited bitcoins. Crisis mostly averted. The company issued a rather understated apology for the “inconvenience” and promised compensation for any losses. Because accidentally giving away $40 billion is just a minor inconvenience, right?
This fiasco exposed glaring holes in Bithumb’s internal controls. No cross-verification between actual holdings and ledger balances. No validation of asset types or units. Just a single employee with the power to accidentally create billions in digital currency out of thin air. The incident revealed internal bitcoin circulation reached over 660,000 during the height of the error. The lack of duty segregation within transaction processes significantly increased the risk of this massive error occurring without immediate detection.
South Korean regulators weren’t amused. The Financial Services Commission quickly called an emergency meeting and launched a review of cryptocurrency exchanges. The incident has sparked considerable regulatory scrutiny due to Bithumb’s troubling history of security problems. This isn’t Bithumb’s first rodeo either—they suffered a $20 million breach in April 2024.
The incident eerily mirrors Samsung Securities’ 2018 blunder when they issued 1,000 shares instead of 1,000 won dividends. Some things never change in Korean finance. Different year, different asset, same old human error.
