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Bitcoin dropped to $55,000 on Bithumb following an unintentional airdrop of 2,000 BTC to users.
A mistake in internal reward distribution briefly caused a significant drop in bitcoin prices on South Korea’s Bithumb exchange after users were incorrectly credited with substantial phantom balances.
Bithumb airdrops users 2,000 BTC (Photo by Daniel Bernard on Unsplash/Modified by CoinDesk)
What to know:
- Bithumb reported that users were erroneously credited with 2,000 BTC instead of a minor reward of 2,000 won during a rewards event, resulting in substantial bitcoin balances that only existed in the exchange’s internal records.
- Users tried to sell the credited amounts, causing bitcoin on Bithumb to drop as much as 15.8% compared to prices on other exchanges, with BTC briefly trading at around 81 million won ($55,000).
- The exchange stated it restricted the impacted accounts within minutes, prices quickly returned to normal, and the event was not linked to a hack or security compromise, ensuring customer assets remained protected.
Bitcoin experienced a sudden decline to $55,000 on the Bithumb exchange this week following what seems to have been a significant internal accounting error.
Bithumb incorrectly credited users with 2,000 BTC each instead of a nominal reward valued at 2,000 Korean won (approximately $1.50), as noted in a blog post on Friday.
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The outcome was the appearance of tens of millions of dollars’ worth of phantom bitcoin in numerous user accounts. No bitcoin was transferred on-chain, and the inflated balances existed solely within Bithumb’s internal ledger.
Users who suddenly noticed large balances acted quickly to sell, initiating a steep selloff on Bithumb’s BTC/KRW pair, which resulted in prices being 15.8% lower than other exchanges. At one point, BTC was traded at 81 million won ($55,000) while prices on other platforms remained relatively consistent.
Bithumb indicated it detected the unusual transactions via internal controls and restricted trading for the affected accounts shortly after the event.
The exchange mentioned that prices on its platform returned to normal within approximately five minutes and that its liquidation prevention system functioned as designed, avoiding any cascading forced liquidations linked to the price fluctuation.
The company emphasized that this incident was not associated with an external hack or security violation, and that customer assets remain secure.
