How a Bitcoin promotion error triggered a regulatory reckoning in South Korea

A mistaken Bitcoin payout revealed how exchange ledgers work and why South Korea is rethinking internal controls for crypto platforms.

A simple data-entry error allowed 620,000 nonexistent BTC to appear in user accounts for 20 minutes because trades update a private database first, with onchain settlement happening later.

Around 1,788 BTC worth of trades were executed before the exchange locked everything down. What could have been dismissed as a harmless error turned into a serious operational and regulatory event.

Regulatory filings showed Bithumb held only 175 BTC of its own in Q3 2025, while it held custody of over 42,000 BTC for customers. This highlights how heavily the system depends on accurate internal accounting.

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