South Korea’s Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) has opened an investigation into Bithumb after the exchange mistakenly credited users with 620,000 BTC—about $42.8 billion—during a promotional event.
Investigation opened
Yonhap reported Tuesday that the FSS is probing alleged platform violations tied to the erroneous crediting of bitcoin balances that the exchange did not hold.
Bithumb acknowledged the incident on Saturday, saying it “incorrectly paid” the BTC to users.
The exchange said it recovered most of the miscredited amount, but about 125 BTC (around $8.6 million) remains unsettled.
Alleged control failures
South Korean authorities flagged potential implications for market integrity.
An FSS official said:
“We are taking this case very seriously. The FSS will take stern legal actions against acts that harm the market order.”
Regulators also pointed to alleged mismatches between crypto held in Bithumb wallets and amounts credited to customer accounts.
The FSS cited deficiencies in internal controls, with local reporting indicating the error stemmed from a single point of failure involving one staff member.
‘Paper Bitcoin’ debate
CryptoQuant analyst Maartunn said the 620,000 BTC “were not ‘real’ Bitcoin,” describing them as virtual balances visible only inside Bithumb’s internal systems.
He said the promotion was intended to reward users with 2,000 won ($1.4), but mistakenly credited 2,000 BTC per user after an employee entered “BTC” instead of “won.”
Maartunn added Bithumb holds about 41,798 BTC in reserves, and noted that around 3,875 BTC (about $268 million) was withdrawn during the incident.
