Bithumb’s Giveaway Glitch Sparks $43B Bitcoin Mirage and Brief Exchange Crash
A routine promotional giveaway on South Korean crypto exchange Bithumb spiraled into chaos this week after a technical error credited hundreds of users with enormous amounts of Bitcoin, triggering a sharp but short-lived price collapse on the platform.
The issue stemmed from a “Random Box” event meant to distribute small rewards, with most participants expected to receive just 2,000 won—about $1.37. Instead, due to an internal miscalculation, some users found 2,000 Bitcoin credited to their accounts, a windfall worth roughly $142 million per person at the time.
Bithumb later confirmed that 695 accounts were affected, with a total of about 620,000 BTC—valued near $43 billion—mistakenly recorded on its internal systems. Early local reports had placed the figure even higher before the exchange clarified the numbers.
Crucially, the Bitcoin never moved on-chain. The balances existed only within Bithumb’s internal ledger and were flagged and reversed within five minutes. Still, that brief window was enough for some users to attempt to sell the phantom funds, overwhelming the order books and sending Bitcoin’s listed price on Bithumb plunging to as low as $55,000—well below prices on other exchanges.
Regulators estimate that more than $2 billion worth of the incorrectly credited Bitcoin was sold during that short span, intensifying the sudden crash. Elsewhere in the market, Bitcoin dipped to around $60,000 before rebounding toward $71,000.
Bithumb said it has since recovered the vast majority of the erroneous credits, reclaiming over 618,000 BTC and clawing back most of the Bitcoin that had been sold. Any remaining unrecovered amounts, the exchange said, will be covered using company funds.
The exchange stressed that the incident was not the result of hacking or a security breach and that no customers lost existing assets. Bithumb added that it is overhauling its asset distribution processes and strengthening internal controls to prevent a repeat of the episode.
What began as a minor giveaway ultimately became one of the most dramatic examples of how a split-second accounting error can ripple through a crypto market—at least long enough to briefly rewrite the price of Bitcoin on a major exchange.