Seoul: Bithumb, one of South Korea's crypto exchanges, announced that it will reimburse customers who experienced losses due to panic selling triggered by an internal transfer error last week.
According to Yonhap News Agency, the cryptocurrency exchange mistakenly transferred 620,000 bitcoins to 249 users participating in a promotional event around 7 p.m. on Friday. This error resulted in each user receiving an average of 2,490 bitcoins, which are valued at approximately 244 billion won (US$166 million) per user. Some of the recipients proceeded to sell the bitcoins, leading to a brief but sharp drop in bitcoin prices.
The company has committed to fully compensating affected customers for their losses and will provide an additional 10 percent compensation as well. To further support its users, the exchange has decided to waive trading fees on all listed assets for one week, starting at midnight on Monday.
Bithumb has activated a companywide crisis management system, led by senior executives, and formed a task force to address investor losses. The exchange has successfully recovered 618,212 bitcoins and later managed to recoup 93 percent of the 1,788 bitcoins sold by users.