South Korean cryptocurrency exchange Bithumb experienced an internal payout error that credited an “abnormal amount” of Bitcoin to some user accounts during a promotional event, causing brief sharp price fluctuations. The exchange identified and corrected the error, restricting affected accounts and stabilizing prices within minutes. Bithumb stated the incident was not due to hacking or security breaches and caused no customer asset losses. While unverified, users on X claimed some accounts received roughly 2,000 BTC. This follows Bithumb’s January recovery of $200 million in dormant assets. Operational challenges have also been reported at other major exchanges like Coinbase and Binance.
Bithumb said it identified and corrected an internal payout error after an “abnormal amount” of Bitcoin was credited to some user accounts during a promotional event. This briefly caused sharp price fluctuations on the exchange.
In a company announcement, the South Korean crypto exchange said the price dislocation occurred after some recipients sold the mistakenly credited Bitcoin. It quickly restricted the affected accounts through internal controls, allowing market prices to stabilize within minutes and preventing any chain liquidations.
Bithumb said the incident was unrelated to any hacking or security breach and did not result in losses to customer assets. The company added that trading, deposits and withdrawals are operating normally, customer funds remain safely managed, and it will transparently disclose follow-up actions to prevent similar errors.
While Bithumb did not disclose the amount involved, several users on X claimed that some accounts were erroneously credited with roughly 2,000 Bitcoin. This claim has not been independently verified, and the news comes after Bithumb said in January that it had identified roughly $200 million in dormant customer assets spread across 2.6 million accounts.
According to CoinGecko, Bithumb currently carries a trust score of 7 out of 10. It reported roughly $2.2 billion in 24-hour trading volume at the time of writing.
Beyond price volatility, the past year has exposed operational challenges at centralized cryptocurrency exchanges. In June, Coinbase acknowledged that restrictions on user accounts had been a major issue and claimed it had reduced unnecessary account freezes by 82% following upgrades to its machine-learning models and internal infrastructure.
The disclosure followed years of complaints from users who reported being locked out of their accounts for months, sometimes during periods of heightened market volatility. These incidents occurred even when no security breach or external attack had occurred.
During the Oct. 10 market sell-off that triggered billions of dollars in liquidations, Binance faced user complaints that technical issues prevented some traders from exiting positions at peak volatility. Although Binance said its core trading infrastructure remained operational, the exchange later distributed about $728 million in compensation to users affected by the disruptions.
