On Feb. 6, Seoul-based Bithumb mistakenly credited customers with Bitcoin during a promotional payout. According to reporting, an employee entered the payout in Bitcoin rather than in won.
The campaign had planned payouts of 620,000 won ($423) per person, not Bitcoin. (Ed. note: regulators called the resulting ledger entry “Ghost Bitcoin” because the coins belonged to customers, not the exchange.)
A ledger entry showing roughly $40 billion of Bitcoin briefly appeared on the exchange’s balance sheet. The transfers took place within about 20 minutes before staff recognized the error.
Customers sold about 1,788 Bitcoins during the window of incorrect credits. Bithumb says it recovered roughly 93% of the mistakenly sent Bitcoin.
The company also states it covered the remaining roughly 7% from its own assets. Bithumb has characterized the incident as an internal inputting error and denied any malpractice.
A special task force led by the Financial Supervisory Service is investigating the incident. Lee Chan-jin said, “That is the essence of the issue: The transaction was actually executed,” and Kim Jiho warned, “This is an issue that cannot be taken lightly,” noting systemic control weaknesses.
