Bithumb (the second largest exchange in South Korea) originally planned to hold a small event, drawing 695 lucky users, each receiving an airdrop reward of 2000 KRW (about 10 RMB).
What happened? The person operating it made a slip (or lost their mind), confusing the units; it was supposed to be 2000 KRW, but it was directly written as 2000 BTC! 695 people × 2000 BTC = a total of 620,000 bitcoins distributed!!!
At that time, one bitcoin was worth about 65,000 to 70,000 KRW, so this mistake resulted in nearly 60 trillion KRW being issued (an astronomical figure), which is 150% more than the total bitcoin stock of their own exchange (only 460,000 bitcoins)...
They directly "printed coins out of thin air" until it exploded on the charts. Fortunately, they noticed something was wrong within 20 minutes and quickly froze the accounts, announcing that 99.7% of it was frozen back, but only 93 people managed to sell 1788 BTC, causing the price of bitcoin on Bithumb's own platform to plummet by 10%, dropping to about $55,000 (while other exchanges remained unaffected).
In the end, Bithumb acknowledged the mistake, covering the gap of 1788 BTC (about $130 million to $170 million) with company funds, because South Korean law stipulates that money involved in such "platform errors" does not need to be returned by the users, effectively making it a windfall (but very few people actually benefited).
A highly compliant large exchange in South Korea, and yet, a grassroots employee could issue 150% of the bitcoin stock with just the press of a button?
No multiple reviews? No excessive issuance checks? This is too sloppy!
If such a bomb were to explode, the entire crypto world would be buried together...
It's really a bit scary; if even such a large exchange operates like this, one must still be cautious about leaving money on exchanges~
What happened? The person operating it made a slip (or lost their mind), confusing the units; it was supposed to be 2000 KRW, but it was directly written as 2000 BTC! 695 people × 2000 BTC = a total of 620,000 bitcoins distributed!!!
At that time, one bitcoin was worth about 65,000 to 70,000 KRW, so this mistake resulted in nearly 60 trillion KRW being issued (an astronomical figure), which is 150% more than the total bitcoin stock of their own exchange (only 460,000 bitcoins)...
They directly "printed coins out of thin air" until it exploded on the charts. Fortunately, they noticed something was wrong within 20 minutes and quickly froze the accounts, announcing that 99.7% of it was frozen back, but only 93 people managed to sell 1788 BTC, causing the price of bitcoin on Bithumb's own platform to plummet by 10%, dropping to about $55,000 (while other exchanges remained unaffected).
In the end, Bithumb acknowledged the mistake, covering the gap of 1788 BTC (about $130 million to $170 million) with company funds, because South Korean law stipulates that money involved in such "platform errors" does not need to be returned by the users, effectively making it a windfall (but very few people actually benefited).
A highly compliant large exchange in South Korea, and yet, a grassroots employee could issue 150% of the bitcoin stock with just the press of a button?
No multiple reviews? No excessive issuance checks? This is too sloppy!
If such a bomb were to explode, the entire crypto world would be buried together...
It's really a bit scary; if even such a large exchange operates like this, one must still be cautious about leaving money on exchanges~