Bithumb Bitcoin Blunder: $1.3B Error Sparks Probe Into Weak Financial Oversight

South Korea’s financial authorities are facing criticism after failing to spot major flaws in Bithumb’s systems that led to an unprecedented Bitcoin error.

Despite repeated inspections by the Financial Services Commission (FSC) and the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS), a vulnerability remained that allowed a single employee to trigger massive coin transfers without detection.

Bithumb Crypto Mishap

According to Rep. Kang Min-guk of the People Power Party, the FSC reviewed Bithumb once in 2022 and twice in 2025, while the FSS carried out three inspections during the same period. Despite this, none identified discrepancies between actual holdings and accounting records.

On February 6, a promotional event went wrong when users were mistakenly credited with 2,000 BTC each instead of coins worth 2,000 won (worth approximately $1.38). This error caused the system to register a total of 620,000 bitcoins being “distributed” to users, which is far more than the exchange’s actual holdings of about 42,800 BTC.

As reported by The Korea Times, the country’s lawmakers said the mistake exposes deeper weaknesses in internal controls, ledger management, and regulatory supervision. Rep. Han Chang-min of the Social Democratic Party questioned whether regulators’ inspections were largely procedural and noted attempts to place responsibility on Bithumb.

The FSS has extended its probe through February and is investigating potential violations involving investor protection, anti-money laundering (AML), and system flaws.

Bithumb CEO Lee Jae-won acknowledged two smaller prior errors that were recovered, which the FSS will also review.

Meanwhile, an emergency team from the authorities and the Digital Asset eXchange Alliance (DAXA) is reviewing asset verification and internal controls at some of the country’s other prominent exchanges, such as Upbit, Coinone, Korbit, and GOPAX. Results are expected to influence both DAXA’s self-regulatory rules and future crypto legislation.

Lost and Found

The latest setback comes a month after the Gwangju District Prosecutors’ Office reported that Bitcoin seized in a criminal case had gone missing, but authorities have now recovered all 40 billion won worth of the lost cryptocurrency. Prosecutors said the 320.8 bitcoins were returned from the hacker’s electronic wallet to the office’s wallet on February 17, apparently voluntarily, after the hacker was unable to cash them out.

The coins had originally been confiscated from the daughter of a couple arrested for operating an illegal overseas gambling site worth 390 billion won between 2018 and 2021, who had converted their criminal proceeds into Bitcoin. Officials said the BTC were lost last August when prosecutors accidentally accessed a phishing site while checking the wallet, which exposed the funds.

Authorities have been tracking the hacker and monitoring domestic and international exchanges to prevent further losses.

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