In brief
- South Korean exchange Bithumb mistakenly credited users with 2,000 BTC each instead of a tiny cash reward.
- The error was corrected within five minutes, but not before users sold an estimated $2 billion worth, per local reports.
- The sell-off, only on Bithumb’s internal ledger and not on-chain, still triggered a sharp Bitcoin price crash on the exchange.
A South Korean crypto exchange accidentally credited users with billions of dollars’ worth of Bitcoin this week, triggering a flash crash in the platform’s listed value of the token.
Instead of airdropping users 2,000 won (a sum worth $1.37 at writing), the exchange, Bithumb, reportedly sent 2,000 BTC apiece, users said. That massive sum was worth some $142 million at writing,…