Bithumb Initiates Legal Action to Recover Remaining Bitcoin from Payout Error

Bithumb, one of South Korea's prominent cryptocurrency exchanges, has launched legal proceedings to recover a small remaining balance of Bitcoin resulting from a significant operational failure earlier this year. The exchange has filed for a provisional attachment, a court-approved measure designed to freeze assets ahead of a civil lawsuit, targeting users who have refused to return the funds. The legal action is the final stage of a cleanup following a February 6 promotional event. During the event, a system input error caused the exchange to distribute 620,000 BTC to 249 winners, rather than the intended 620,000 Korean won (approximately $420). At the time of the error, the mistaken transfer was valued at roughly 62 trillion Korean won, or $42 billion. Bithumb managed to reverse the majority of the transactions within minutes, recovering 99.7% of the funds on the same day. The exchange previously reported that 1,788 BTC had already been sold by recipients, a loss that Bithumb claimed was covered using its own company reserves. The current litigation targets a small number of recipients who argue they are not responsible for returning the assets. Under South Korean law, assets received by mistake are typically classified as unjust enrichment and are legally required to be returned. This incident has already prompted a regulatory response; the Financial Services Commission recently ordered all domestic crypto exchanges to reconcile their internal ledgers with actual asset holdings every five minutes to ensure discrepancies are detected and addressed immediately.