Bithumb accidentally gave away 2,000 BTC and crashed its market
Bitcoin (BTC) has flash crashed 10% on the South Korean exchange Bithumb after a user sold 2,000 BTC that they received by mistake from a promotional airdrop.
Earlier today, X users noted that Bithumb’s listed BTC/South Korean Won (KRW) trading pair plummeted by 10% in the space of a minute before returning to its original price.
The account “Definalist,” which claims to be made up of five crypto traders based in China, noted the price drop and a “rumor” that someone dumped 2,000 BTC.
They also appeared to show a screenshot taken from the seller’s account while they were dumping the BTC, which in today’s less-than-stellar crypto markets would fetch $134 million.
Read more: Bithumb boosts security in wake of SK Telecom malware hack
Definalist later claimed that hundreds of users may have received 2,000 BTC accidentally after an employee typed BTC, instead of KRW, when sending out 2,000 KRW ($1.4) as part of a “random box prize” promotional giveaway.
Bithumb confirms it sent ‘abnormal’ sums of BTC to users
Bithumb has since confirmed some details of the incident, although it didn’t confirm the quantity of BTC nor the number of customers who received mistaken disbursements.
It admitted that an “abnormal” sum of BTC was paid to various users, and that BTC’s price “temporarily fluctuated sharply as some accounts that received the BTC sold it.”
It notes that it was able to restrict the accounts selling the BTC and added that “the market price returned to normal levels within five minutes, and the domino liquidation prevention system functioned normally, preventing chain liquidations due to the abnormal BTC price.”
“We want to make it clear that this incident is unrelated to any external hacking or security breach, and does not pose any issues with system security or customer asset management,” the exchange said.
If Bithumb did in fact send 2,000 BTC to at least 100 users, thats a minimum distribution of $13 billion.
BTC crashed almost 47% from its all-time high of $126,000 last October but has, for the time being, gradually begun to increase in price again.
The flash crash is another problem for Bithumb after South Korea’s financial competition watchdog raided its office last week over various promotions it advertised last year.
Protos has reached out to Bithumb for comment and will update this piece should we hear back.
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