A routine customer promotion at one of South Korea’s biggest crypto platforms spiraled into a spectacular error when Bithumb mistakenly sent out bitcoin worth tens of billions of dollars to ordinary users. Instead of small cash rewards, the exchange briefly turned hundreds of accounts into paper fortunes and jolted trading in one of the world’s most closely watched digital assets.
Within minutes, the glitch triggered frantic selling, a sharp price swing and an urgent scramble inside Bithumb to claw back what it now openly describes as a multibillion dollar mistake. The episode has become a stress test for how crypto exchanges manage risk, communicate with customers and answer to increasingly assertive regulators.
How a routine promotion became a $44 billion error
The starting point was mundane: Bithumb had planned a marketing campaign that would credit loyal customers with modest rewards, described in local reports as small cash payments to active traders. Instead of those limited perks, the exchange’s internal systems began allocating massive amounts of bitcoin, with several accounts suddenly showing balances that collectively added up to $44 billion. What was meant to be a tightly controlled distribution of minor incentives instantly became one of the largest accidental transfers in the short history of digital assets.
Several outlets describe the platform as a South Korean Crypto bitcoin worth $43 Billion, while others frame the misallocation as more than $40 billion in value. The discrepancies reflect how quickly bitcoin’s price was moving as the error unfolded, but all of the reporting converges on the same core point: a South Korean exchange, Bithumb, unintentionally pushed out a life changing amount of Bitcoin to regular users.
Inside the glitch: 2,000 BTC, phantom balances and a flash crash
Under the hood, the mistake appears to have been an internal accounting failure rather than a hack. One detailed account describes a $44 Billion Mistake in which Bithumb Accidentally Sends 2,000 Bitcoin to Hundreds of Users. Another breakdown of the same event notes that the mistaken distribution involved 620,000 bitcoins in internal records, valued at about 61 trillion won, which suggests that many of the balances were phantom entries that did not correspond to coins actually leaving the exchange’s wallets.
Even so, a portion of the windfall was real enough for users to trade. An analysis of market data shows that an internal reward distribution mistake on Bithumb in South Korea briefly sent the price of BTC on that venue down to USD55,000 after the exchange accidentally airdropped users 2,000 BTC. That local crash, far below global spot prices at the time, is consistent with a flood of suddenly enriched customers racing to sell their unexpected holdings into the order book.
Users turned instant millionaires, then watched balances vanish
For a brief window, some Bithumb customers saw their account values jump into the millions. One report describes a $40 billion allocation of Bitcoin that briefly made some users millionaires in BTC terms, even if they never had a chance to withdraw most of that value. Another account of the same episode notes that the South Korean exchange accidentally sends $40 billion in Bitcoin (BTC), underscoring how surreal the numbers looked on screen.
Users did not have long to enjoy the view. Video explainers on the incident stress that Bithumb moved to reverse the transfers within 35 m of the error and has since recovered 99.7% of the misallocated funds. A separate clip on the Billion Mistake emphasizes that Bithumb Accidentally Sends Bitcoin to Hundreds of Users, then rapidly froze and reversed trades where possible, leaving only a sliver of the erroneous windfall in customer hands.
Bithumb’s damage control and compensation strategy
Once the scale of the problem became clear, Bithumb shifted from firefighting to damage control. The company has publicly said it has recovered almost all of the bitcoins it gave away, a point repeated in multiple statements that the South Korean firm has clawed back nearly the entire Bithumb allocation. Another summary of the same message notes that Bithumb says it has recovered almost all of the bitcoins it gave away, reinforcing that the Bithumb leadership is eager to show that the financial hole is limited.
At the same time, the exchange has had to address the expectations of customers who traded during the glitch in good faith. One detailed account of the cryptocurrency trading mistake compensation says that, for users whose accounts were frozen or trades reversed, Bithumb is offering specific payments into each account as per a report on cryptocurrency trading mistake compensation. A related description of the same plan notes that a separate Cryptocurrency trading mistake compensation package is being credited to each affected account, signaling that the company is trying to balance legal risk with reputational repair.
Regulators move in as South Korea rethinks crypto risk
The sheer size of the misallocation has drawn immediate attention from supervisors. Commentators note that However South Korea’s financial regulator is now examining how such a failure could occur at a major venue, a point highlighted in video coverage that stresses However South Korea is treating the case as a warning about systemic vulnerabilities. A separate explainer on the South Korean crypto glitch sending $40B in bitcoin to users describes how a major error at a South Korean exchange briefly made some users rich before the tokens were clawed back, underscoring the consumer protection questions now on the table.
Local analysis is even more blunt, describing a Mistaken distribution of Mistaken 620,000 bitcoins worth 61 trillion won that reveals lax oversight and internal system vulnerabilities, as explained By Kang. That critique aligns with broader commentary that a South Korean Crypto Exchange Bithumb Accidentally Sends $44 Billion in Bitcoin to Users, Triggers Market Shock and invites tougher regulatory scrutiny in South Korea.
