A South Korean cryptocurrency exchange, Bithumb, accidentally gave away over $40 billion worth of bitcoin to customers on Friday, making them multi-millionaires briefly. The company had planned a small cash reward but instead sent 2,000 bitcoins per customer.
Bithumb quickly realised its mistake and recovered almost all the missing tokens, restricting trading and withdrawals for affected customers within 35 minutes. The company has promised to pay $13,66 each to eligible customers as compensation and will waive trading fees.
To prevent such errors in the future, Bithumb plans to improve verification systems and introduce AI to detect abnormal transactions. South Korea’s financial regulator is reviewing the incident, and the company vows to cooperate with any formal investigations.
This accidental payout highlights the need for tighter regulatory controls in finance and has sparked discussion around improving security measures in the cryptocurrency industry.
Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cz6y62nzjxxo