Crypto company accidentally sent people billions of dollars worth of Bitcoin

The South Korean cryptocurrency exchange Bithumb found itself in the spotlight after accidentally sending customers approximately $44 billion worth of bitcoins. The error occurred during a promotion in which users were supposed to receive small cash rewards worth several thousand won.

Instead, some received at least 2,000 bitcoins, which immediately caused chaos in the market. According to available data, the exchange managed to recover 99.7 percent of the 620,000 bitcoins mistakenly distributed within a short period of time and temporarily restricted trading and withdrawals for hundreds of affected accounts.

The company emphasized that this was not a hacker attack or a system security failure. However, the incident briefly caused a sharp drop in the price of bitcoin on the Bithumb exchange, where the value of the cryptocurrency fell by up to 17 percent.

The exchange rate later stabilized.

(reuters)