Bithumb Incident: Operational Error Sends Bitcoin to Users
South Korea’s cryptocurrency exchange Bithumb made a costly mistake during a “Random Box” promotional event on July 2, 2026. The event was intended to give away small cash prizes of 20,000 to 50,000 Korean won to selected winners. However, staff mistakenly entered the payout unit as Bitcoin instead of the fiat currency.
As a result, some recipients received at least 2,000 BTC each. At the prevailing Bitcoin price of approximately 98 million won per coin, each person’s windfall was worth roughly 196 billion won (about $146 million). Social media screenshots and user reports quickly spread, confirming the scale of the error. Bithumb later acknowledged that it had “accidentally sent an excess of bitcoin to some customers.”
Some of the affected users reportedly sold the mistakenly credited coins in the open market, causing the Bitcoin price on Bithumb to drop more than 10% below the global market rate. The exchange stated that its internal control system detected the abnormal transaction immediately and restricted trading on the relevant accounts.
Bithumb emphasized that the incident was not caused by an external hack or security breach, but by a human input error. The exchange also said its “domino liquidation prevention system” prevented more severe chain liquidations linked to the abnormal Bitcoin price, and that no customer assets were lost.
Bitcoin Market Suffers Historic Selloff
The Bithumb mishap occurred on the same day that the broader Bitcoin market experienced one of its most dramatic selloffs in history. According to Bitcoin Magazine Pro data, BTC plunged to $60,000, marking the largest raw dollar drawdown ever recorded. The price fell approximately 50% from its all-time high of $126,000 reached in October 2025.
The decline surpassed even the selling seen around the FTX collapse, as risk assets broadly weakened. The move was magnified by leverage: more than $1.1 billion in derivatives positions were liquidated after support near $70,000 broke, accelerating the slide into the $60,000 range. At the time of writing, Bitcoin had recovered to trade above $69,000.
The combination of the Bithumb operational error and the broader market rout amplified short-term volatility. Although the exact amount of mistakenly distributed Bitcoin remains undisclosed, the episode highlights the internal process risks at centralized exchanges and the potential for price anomalies to trigger cascading liquidations in a high-leverage environment. The story is developing.