Bithumb Mistake: $40 Billion Bitcoin Error Refunds Panicked Sellers

Bithumb, a major South Korean cryptocurrency exchange, experienced a significant operational error on Friday, February 7, 2026. An employee mistakenly distributed 620,000 Bitcoin, valued at over $40 billion, instead of the intended 620,000 Korean won cash prizes to 695 users. This incident occurred around 7 p.m. local time and was identified within 20 minutes.

The erroneous distribution led to a chaotic situation where some users immediately sold their newly acquired Bitcoin, triggering a sharp price decline of 17% on the Bithumb platform. Bitcoin's price briefly dropped from approximately $67,188 to $55,400.

Bithumb acted swiftly to halt trading and withdrawals for affected accounts starting at 7:35 p.m. and managed to retrieve 99.7% of the distributed coins. The exchange has pledged to cover customer losses resulting from this 'panic-selling' event and will provide an additional 10% bonus to those affected.

CEO Lee Jae-won issued a formal apology, acknowledging the exchange's failure to uphold its core values of stability and integrity. As of Saturday, February 8, 2026, the estimated customer losses amounted to approximately 1 billion won, which Bithumb will cover using corporate assets. Regulators, including the Financial Services Commission, convened an emergency meeting on Saturday to address the situation.