“The $44 billion intern… There are hacks and bureaucratic farces in the great human comedy of cryptocurrencies. We already knew the story of the couple who received more than $10 million instead of a measly 100 Australian dollars from Crypto.com. It went viral a few years ago. South Korean exchange Bithumb hit the headlines this week on Friday, February 6 with […]”, — write: businessua.com.ua
The $44 billion intern… There are hacks and bureaucratic farces in the great human comedy of cryptocurrencies. We already knew the story couples which received over $10 million instead of a measly A$100 from Crypto.com . It went viral a few years ago.
This week, on Friday, February 6, the South Korean stock exchange Bithumb made headlines for all the wrong reasons by confusing the yen with bitcoins during a simple promotional offer. This error almost did not turned hundreds of ordinary users into Web3 oligarchs over a cup of coffee.
Key points of this article:
- The intern, through an administrative error, turned user accounts into owners of 2,000 bitcoins each, or $130 million per person.
- The error caused Bithumb to crash locally, devaluing Bitcoin by 17% in Seoul, before the exchange froze the accounts of 695 beneficiaries.
From winning dust to the Bitcoin jackpot The cause of the disaster is tragically mundane. The employee, likely distracted by the frenzy of the market, credited users with a bonus of 2,000 Korean won (approximately US$1.50). However a fatal mouse error resulted in BTC being the selected unit.
Result? Instead of a small coin to buy a piece of chewing gum, the balance of hundreds of customers increased by 2000 bitcoins or a whopping $130 million per person depending on the exchange rate.
However, a short digression is necessary here. The figures for this cosmic error vary by source. While some initial reports, such as those relayed by observers on X and local media, mention a credit of 2,000 BTC per user, or about $140 million at the time, to hundreds of lucky people, other, more official details indicate a total of 620,000 BTC distributed among 695 participants.
This discrepancy can be explained by hasty estimates compared to internal audits: on average, it would be about 892 BTC per person, but the scale is still impressive. Imagine this: 620,000 BTC is a mountain worth almost 60 trillion Korean won, or about 44 billion US dollars.
For comparison, it amounts to more than 3% of all bitcoins, that are in circulation in the world, and this amount can shake the reserves of such a giant exchange as Bithumb.
End of retreat. Let’s get back to the point.
2000 BTC sent by mistake: disaster almost averted It took 35 minutes to avoid a shipwreck :
- 19:00: Distribution of poisoned “gift” to 695 customers.
- 19:20: Awareness of a mistake (a famous moment of loneliness).
- 19:35: Start of freezing transactions.
- 19:40: The curtain is down, the funds are blocked.
Specifically speaking this error did not occur in the blockchain itself, but in Bithumb’s internal registries. This is what is known as “paper trading”: the exchange displays numbers that do not yet reflect the reality on the blockchain. However for users, the temptation was very real, and the reaction was as instinctive as it was violent.
Bitcoin on #Bithumb suddenly plunged, trading more than 10% lower than other markets.
Reports say a staff error during the airdrop resulted in $2,000 in bitcoins ($133 million) being sent instead of a small reward in Korean won.
Some users sold it immediately, causing the price to drop quickly. pic.twitter.com/X8Zjaq86Tq
— Lookonchain (@lookonchain) February 6, 2026
“The price of Bitcoin on Bithumb has plummeted, down more than 10% compared to other markets. According to some sources, human error during the airdrop resulted in 2,000 BTC ($133 million) being sent instead of a modest reward. Some users immediately sold their bitcoins, causing the price to plummet.”
Local collapse caused by greed As soon as the alarm went off on smartphones, the panic subsided. The beneficiaries of this amazing profit rushed to convert their winnings. As a consequence Bithumb’s order book exploded under unprecedented selling pressure, triggering a market reset that saw the price of Bitcoin drop 17% against the global market. For a few minutes, Seoul lived in a parallel reality where Bitcoin was worthless, crushed by its own over-generosity.
In a statement released at dawn, Bitumb tried to put out the fire:
“This situation is not related to external hacking or a security breach. The internal control system detected the anomaly within 20 minutes and the withdrawal was immediately frozen.”
In the end, management turned off the power for 35 minutes, freezing the withdrawals and accounts of 695 lucky people. Bithumb claims it has already returned 99.7% of assets clarifying that this was not an external attack, but a simple administrative “failure”.
If the incident ends without a major collapse, it will serve as a stark reminder that centralization remains the Achilles’ heel of our ecosystem. In the hands of one careless person, billions can disappear or magically appear. As Beaumarchais aptly said: “I hasten to laugh at everything for fear of being forced to cry.” For Bithumb, this joke cost their reputation dearly, but for us it confirms that in cryptocurrency, the show is always guaranteed.
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