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The South Korean cryptocurrency exchange Bithumb has asked a local court to order a preventive seizure of seven bitcoins from a group of users who have not returned funds credited to them by mistake. The request is valued at approximately $8 million and is intended as a preliminary measure ahead of a civil lawsuit, preventing the debtors from moving the assets while the case proceeds.
The issue began on February 6, when Bithumb ran a promotion meant to pay 620,000 won (about $460) to 249 winners. According to the report, an employee entered “BTC” instead of “KRW” into the system. As a result, each winner’s internal account showed 620,000 BTC credited, a figure that—on paper—represented more than $40 billion in assets.
Within minutes, some users took advantage of the erroneous credit and sold approximately 1,788 BTC before Bithumb could freeze the affected accounts. The large sales drove the BTC/KRW trading pair down to roughly 80 million won per bitcoin (around $54,000 per unit). Bithumb then moved quickly to reverse the credits and recover most of the sold coins.
Despite the recovery efforts, about 12.3 billion won (roughly $8.3 million) remained unreturned after the first few days. After weeks of direct negotiations, that amount was reduced to the current balance of approximately seven bitcoins.
Legal experts cited by local media said the situation falls under the concept of unjust enrichment in South Korean law, which requires recipients to return assets received without cause. The report also noted that if the coins have already been sold, users could be required to repurchase them at the current market price to settle the debt.
The incident was triggered by a single human error, but the speed and relative irreversibility of crypto transactions amplified the impact. Bithumb is described as the second-largest exchange in South Korea by CoinGecko, with a reported daily trading volume of $388 million.
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