{"id":451846,"date":"2026-02-13T15:05:59","date_gmt":"2026-02-13T12:05:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/menatech.net\/en\/?p=451846"},"modified":"2026-03-05T17:07:50","modified_gmt":"2026-03-05T14:07:50","slug":"crypto-exchange-distributes-40-billion-worth-of-bitcoin-to-users-by-mistake","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/menatech.net\/en\/crypto-exchange-distributes-40-billion-worth-of-bitcoin-to-users-by-mistake\/","title":{"rendered":"Crypto exchange distributes $40 billion worth of bitcoin to users by mistake"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>Bithumb, a major crypto exchange in South Korea\u2019s acknowledged on Wednesday that it has distributed $40 billion worth of bitcoin to its users \u201cby mistake\u201d. The exchange blamed a significant weakness in its internal systems, which failed to stop the erroneous transfer.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>Korea\u2019s second-largest virtual asset platform said it mistakenly distributed a total of 620,000 bitcoins to users during a promotional event. Apparently, they used the wrong currency; they intended to distribute only 620,000 Korean won, equivalent to $4<span lang=\"EN-US\">29<\/span>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>CEO of the company, Lee Jae-won, told a Korean parliamentary committee that the scale of the giveaway amounted to 15 times the exchange\u2019s own holdings of 42,000 bitcoins. He attributed the incident largely to a processing delay of about 24 hours, which prevented timely updates to customers\u2019 virtual asset balances.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>Users of the exchange found themselves briefly wealthy, receiving <span lang=\"EN-US\">96 million times the intended promotional gift. This was quickly rectified: the exchange recovered most of the funds, with only 1,786 bitcoins (worth almost $119 million) sold. The exchange has frozen the sellers&#8217; accounts since then. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>Lee explained that the exchange\u2019s safeguard requiring a comparison between the amount of currency scheduled for transfer and its actual holdings did not function properly. In addition, the funds were not segregated into a separate account to ensure transaction security.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>This incident coincided with, and possibly contributed to, the sharp fall in bitcoin last week, which lost almost 19% in a day before slightly recovering. It also highlights the inherent risks of the crypto market, where a simple mistake in currency can translate into billions in potential losses and endanger a whole nation\u2019s economy.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Bithumb, a major crypto exchange in South Korea\u2019s acknowledged on Wednesday that it has distributed $40 billion worth of bitcoin to its users \u201cby mistake\u201d. The exchange blamed a significant weakness in its internal systems, which failed to stop the erroneous transfer. Korea\u2019s second-largest virtual asset platform said it mistakenly distributed a total of 620,000 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":254,"featured_media":451849,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":[],"meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_breakdance_hide_in_design_set":false,"_breakdance_tags":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[29330],"tags":[29420,29380,29382],"audience-intent":[],"content-types":[],"country":[],"entity":[],"persona":[],"class_list":["post-451846","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-crypto","tag-cybersecurity","tag-fintech"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/menatech.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451846","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/menatech.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/menatech.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/menatech.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/254"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/menatech.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=451846"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/menatech.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451846\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/menatech.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/451849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/menatech.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=451846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/menatech.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=451846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/menatech.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=451846"},{"taxonomy":"audience-intent","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/menatech.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/audience-intent?post=451846"},{"taxonomy":"content-types","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/menatech.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/content-types?post=451846"},{"taxonomy":"country","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/menatech.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/country?post=451846"},{"taxonomy":"entity","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/menatech.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/entity?post=451846"},{"taxonomy":"format","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/menatech.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/format?post=451846"},{"taxonomy":"persona","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/menatech.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/persona?post=451846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}