A South Korean crypto firm accidentally sends $44 billion worth of bitcoins to users

South Korean Cryptocurrency exchange Bithumb said on Saturday (February 7, 2026) that it accidentally gave away $40 billion worth of bitcoins as promotional rewards to customers, triggering a sharp selloff on the exchange.

Bithumb apologized for the mistake on Friday (February 6, 2026) and said 99.7% of the 620,000 bitcoins, worth about $44 billion at current prices, had been recovered. It blocked trading and withdrawals for 695 affected customers within 35 minutes of the erroneous delivery on Friday (February 6).

The exchange had planned to distribute small cash prizes of 2,000 Korean won ($1.37) or more to each user as part of the promotion program, but the winners received at least 2,000 bitcoins each, according to media reports.

“We want to clarify that this incident was not related to external hacking or security breaches, and there were no issues with system security or customer asset management,” Bithumb said in a statement.

Bitcoin prices briefly fell 17% to 81.1 million on Friday (February 7, 2026) evening on Bithumb, the exchange showed charts. It later recovered and last won 104.5 million. Bithumb follows Upbit, a dominant player in the South Korean crypto space.