Bithumb Exchange Recovers 99.7% of Bitcoin After Payout Error Causes Market Shock

South Korea's second-largest cryptocurrency exchange, Bithumb, encountered an unexpected crisis when an internal payout error led to hundreds of customers receiving substantially more bitcoin than planned. The incident occurred during an event reward distribution on February 6, causing brief but sharp market fluctuations as some users quickly sold the unexpected windfall.

Bithumb clarified that the issue originated from a simple input error—not a security breach—when entering Bitcoin quantities during the reward process. Within 20 minutes of the 19:00 local time payout to 695 users, the exchange detected the anomaly. By 19:35, transaction blocks were implemented on affected accounts, stabilizing Bitcoin's price within five minutes and preventing potential liquidation cascades.

The scale of the error was significant: 620,000 BTC was erroneously distributed. Through rapid intervention, Bithumb recovered 618,212 BTC—99.7% of the total—demonstrating both the risks of human error and the resilience of its real-time monitoring systems.