The financial authorities on the 7th launched an emergency response over Bithumb's erroneous bitcoin payout incident at a domestic virtual asset exchange.
The Financial Supervisory Service held an emergency response meeting on the morning of the day, chaired by Lee Chan-jin, the FSS governor, then immediately formed and dispatched an on-site inspection team. The on-site inspection will identify the circumstances of the incident, Bithumb's user protection measures, the possibility of recovering the mistakenly paid bitcoins, and any illegalities. Given the gravity of the matter, there is a strong possibility it will be converted into an inspection.
The Financial Services Commission is also set to hold an emergency review meeting in the afternoon of the day, chaired by Vice Chair Kwon Dae-young. Bithumb CEO Lee Jae-won is reported to attend the meeting.
Bithumb the previous night tried to pay prize money to participating users through its own "random box" event, but an employee by mistake entered the unit as "bitcoin (BTC)" instead of "won (KRW)." As a result, a total of 620,000 bitcoins were deposited to 695 people. Converted at the then market price, it exceeds 60 trillion won.
Bithumb said it immediately took steps to recover most of the mistakenly paid bitcoins, but some users had already sold or withdrawn them, and about 125 bitcoins (about 13.3 billion won) are still reported to be unrecovered.