{"id":94119,"date":"2026-02-10T12:56:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-10T09:56:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/?p=94119"},"modified":"2026-02-10T13:00:15","modified_gmt":"2026-02-10T10:00:15","slug":"south-korea-launches-investigation-into-bithumb-following-bitcoin-giveaway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/south-korea-launches-investigation-into-bithumb-following-bitcoin-giveaway\/","title":{"rendered":"South Korea Launches Investigation into Bithumb Following Bitcoin ‘Giveaway’"},"content":{"rendered":"

South Korea’s Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) has escalated its routine inspection of the Bithumb exchange to a full-scale investigation. The trigger was an incident<\/a> involving the erroneous crediting of 620,000 BTC (approximately $43.1 billion) to users, reports Yonhap<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A representative of the regulator told the news agency that the authority will take stringent measures against any actions undermining market order.<\/p>\n

The glitch occurred on February 6 during a promotional event. An employee of the platform confused tickers and entered bitcoin as the reward unit instead of Korean won.<\/p>\n

The amount credited far exceeded the exchange’s actual reserves. At the time of the incident, Bithumb held only about 46,000 BTC in its wallets.<\/p>\n

Following the event, the bitcoin-to-won exchange rate on the platform plummeted by 15%.<\/p>\n

Representatives of the exchange reported<\/a> the return of 99.7% of the mistakenly distributed assets. Approximately 125 BTC could not be recovered.<\/p>\n

The company promised to compensate affected clients 110% of their losses and to strengthen internal control systems. Additionally, Bithumb will establish a user protection fund amounting to 100 billion won ($68 million).<\/p>\n

Political Repercussions<\/h2>\n

The incident drew sharp criticism from lawmakers. Legislator Na Kyung-won noted<\/a> that the situation exposed the issue of trading “non-existent assets.”<\/p>\n

\n

“If an exchange merely changes numbers in its internal ledger without actual movement of funds on the blockchain, it signifies the sale of bitcoins it does not own. This situation poses a risk of market collapse,” she stated.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

South Korea’s ruling Democratic Party announced<\/a> plans to limit the share of individual shareholders in crypto exchanges to 15-20%. Previously, the industry opposed this initiative, fearing it would slow market growth.<\/p>\n

Financial authorities are also discussing the introduction of legal responsibilities for crypto platforms similar to those required of traditional financial institutions.<\/p>\n

Back in 2024, the former CEO of Bithumb Holdings, the exchange’s parent company, An Sunghyun, was found guilty<\/a> of fraud. In 2025, law enforcement continued investigative actions<\/a> against the former director of the platform, Kim Dae-sik.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

South Korea’s regulator has escalated its routine inspection of Bithumb to a full-scale investigation following an incident involving the erroneous crediting of 620,000 BTC to users.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":94120,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"select":"1","news_style_id":"1","cryptorium_level":"","_short_excerpt_text":"South Korea investigates Bithumb after 620,000 BTC error.","creation_source":"","_metatest_mainpost_news_update":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[973,1166,1323,36,974],"class_list":["post-94119","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-bithumb","tag-centralized-exchanges-cex","tag-investigations","tag-regulation","tag-south-korea"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"views":"241","promo_type":"1","layout_type":"1","short_excerpt":"South Korea investigates Bithumb after 620,000 BTC error.","is_update":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94119","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=94119"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94119\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":94121,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94119\/revisions\/94121"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/94120"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}