Catenaa, Friday, February 13, 2026- South Korea’s Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) has launched a full-scale investigation into crypto exchange Bithumb after it mistakenly sent roughly $43 billion worth of bitcoin to users during a promotional campaign.
The incident, which occurred on February 6, involved the erroneous distribution of 620,000 BTC across hundreds of accounts. A staff input error reportedly caused the reward unit to be processed in BTC instead of Korean won.
Bithumb has since recovered 99.7% of the mistakenly distributed bitcoin and 93% of the 1,788 BTC sold by users, leaving approximately 125 BTC unrecovered.
The exchange plans to compensate affected users at 110% of losses and establish a 100 billion won ($68 million) user protection fund.
The error caused Bithumb’s bitcoin-KRW trading pair to drop about 15% and has exposed systemic weaknesses in its risk management and ledger controls.
Reports indicate that Bithumb held only about 46,000 BTC at the time of the incident, highlighting the disparity between actual reserves and distributed amounts.
Lawmakers from both opposition and ruling parties criticized the exchange’s operational oversight, with calls for stricter regulation. The incident has fueled debate over the Digital Asset Basic Act, South Korea’s second comprehensive crypto framework.
Proposed measures include capping individual stakes on exchanges at 15% to 20% and holding exchanges legally accountable in line with traditional financial institutions.
The Bithumb fat-finger incident has reignited concerns over crypto market stability and the operational competence of South Korean exchanges, drawing scrutiny from both regulators and legislators aiming to prevent future large-scale errors.
