TechFlow News: On February 7, South Korean cryptocurrency exchange Bithumb disclosed in an official announcement that an operational error occurred during the distribution of promotional rewards, resulting in the erroneous issuance of a total of 620,000 bitcoins to 695 users. Upon identifying the issue, Bithumb froze trading and withdrawal functions for the affected accounts within 35 minutes. As of the time of its announcement, it had successfully recovered 618,212 bitcoins—99.7% of the erroneously distributed amount. Of the 1,788 bitcoins already sold, 93% of the corresponding assets have also been recovered.
The announcement emphasized that no bitcoins were transferred to external wallets during this incident, and that neither a hacker attack nor a security vulnerability was involved. The exchange pledged to cover any unrecovered bitcoins using its own corporate assets and to redesign its asset distribution process while strengthening internal control systems to prevent recurrence.
Notably, cryptocurrency analyst Emmett Gallic stated that the exchange holds only approximately 46,000 bitcoins in reserve.
