Bithumb is back in court over its now‑famous payout mistake, this time seeking a tiny slice of the Bitcoin it still cannot recover. The Korean crypto exchange has launched legal action to recover 7 BTC that remain missing after its multibillion-dollar airdrop blunder earlier this year.
How Bithumb’s $40B Payout Error Happened
In early February, Bithumb ran a promotional event that rewarded 249 users with small cash payouts of 20,000-50,000 won each. It set the total budget at 620,000 won, or a few hundred dollars. Instead, an internal input error changed “won” to “bitcoin,” and the system sent 620,000 BTC to customer accounts.
On paper, that misfire was worth tens of trillions of won, or more than $40 billion, far above Bithumb’s actual reserves of about 42,000 BTC. The mistake briefly showed as “ghost bitcoin” on user balances and triggered heavy trading on the exchange, including a sharp drop in the BTC‑KRW pair as some recipients sold or swapped their unexpected coins.
Bithumb moved fast to cancel the erroneous credits within minutes, but not before some users had traded or withdrawn part of the windfall.
Bithumb Recovers Almost Everything, Except 7 BTC
After the incident, Bithumb froze affected accounts and began unwinding the giveaways. The company recovered 99.7% of the misallocated Bitcoin, equivalent to about 618,212 BTC, by reversing internal entries and reclaiming coins that users sold during the flash move. It also repurchased or settled 93% of the 1,788 BTC customers who had already sold during the panic.
Even after those efforts, a small amount remains missing. Regulators and local media report that roughly 7 BTC could not be retrieved, worth about 700 million won at the time of the error. Bithumb has now started a provisional seizure process in court to recover those coins from users who did not return them. The company argues that the recipients had no legal claim to the mistaken payouts and must return the assets.
Korean authorities have not treated the episode as a simple typo. Financial watchdogs and government task forces are investigating how Bithumb’s internal controls allowed a transfer worth more than $40 billion to slip through without basic checks.
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