One Mistake, 620,000 Bitcoin: Bithumb's 'Donation'

The South Korean cryptocurrency exchange mistakenly transferred 620,000 Bitcoin to participants in a program. However, most of the funds have been successfully returned.

The incident occurred yesterday evening. According to Yonhap news agency, due to a technical error in the reward calculations, 249 users received an average of 2,500 Bitcoin each.

After detecting the error, the exchange temporarily suspended account transactions and began returning the funds. According to the company, 618,212 Bitcoin have been returned, along with 93% of the coins already sold by users. Approximately 125 Bitcoin remain unreturned.

The exchange stated that the incident was caused by human error, as an employee mistakenly indicated the payment in Bitcoin instead of Korean won.

The South Korean financial regulator has launched an investigation into the incident and will evaluate the exchange's efforts to protect users and fully return the mistakenly transferred funds.

The price of one Bitcoin currently stands at around $67,700.