Late last week, Bithumb erroneously airdropped hundreds of customers as much as 2,000 BTC each (a sum worth $140 million at writing) instead of 2,000 Korean won ($1.37). The transfers only occurred on the company’s internal ledgers, and did not involve actual on-chain Bitcoin movements.
The CEO added that 99.7% of the overpaid Bitcoin has been recovered. The missing 0.3%—worth $123.4 million at writing—was repaid with company assets, he said.
“We will never forget that the value of Bithumb's future growth lies solely in the trust of our customers,” Lee said. “Bithumb will continue to protect our customers' assets with the utmost safety under any circumstances.”
Despite Bithumb’s assurances, the episode has created quite a political stir in Korea. The head of the country’s Financial Supervisory Service said the exchange’s error revealed “fundamental weaknesses” and “regulatory blind spots" that must be remedied via digital asset legislation.
“Establishing a real-time verification system between ledger transactions and actual blockchain assets, along with multi-verification procedures and an internal control system capable of simultaneously blocking human and system errors, is a task that can no longer be postponed,” the spokesperson said.
