On August 26 and 27, the Seoul Central District Court ruled in favor of Bithumb in two lawsuits against users who sold mistakenly credited bitcoins and did not return the proceeds, according to South Korean publication Chosun Biz. The exchange is seeking the return of funds as unjust enrichment.
In the first case, the claim amounted to 5 million won ($3,600), and in the second, 194 million won ($140,000). Two other cases involving 14.8 million won ($10,700) and 500 million won ($362,000) are still pending.
$40 Billion Error
The lawsuits are related to an incident that occurred in February 2026. During a promotional event, Bithumb intended to distribute a total of 620,000 won among 249 users, but an employee mistakenly set BTC as the payout unit instead of the Korean currency. As a result, clients’ internal balances showed 620,000 BTC, valued at over $40 billion.
The exchange noticed the error approximately 20 minutes later, blocking trading and withdrawals on affected accounts. However, some recipients managed to sell the credited coins, causing a sharp drop in bitcoin’s price on the platform.
According to financial authorities, before transactions were made, Bithumb recovered 618,214 BTC (99.7% of the erroneously credited amount). Clients sold another 1,786 BTC. Later, the trading platform reported recovering about 93% of this volume.
In March, the company filed four separate lawsuits against users who sold the assets and refused to return the proceeds.
Following the incident, South Korea’s Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) launched a full-scale investigation. The regulator was interested in how the platform could reflect a bitcoin volume on client accounts that far exceeded its actual reserves.
Error Leads to Increased Oversight
In April, the FSC introduced new requirements for crypto exchanges following the review initiated after the Bithumb incident.
The regulator mandated platforms to implement automated reconciliation of client balances with actual reserves every five minutes. For manual operations, including promotional payouts, automated checks, account separation, and multi-level confirmation are required.
The investigation into Bithumb itself has also moved to the next stage. The FSS sent the exchange a conclusion following the review and initiated a procedure for possible sanctions. After receiving the platform’s explanations, the regulator must prepare a draft of measures and submit it to the sanctions committee for consideration.
Earlier in August, Bithumb unveiled a roadmap for preparing for an IPO with the aim of completing the offering by 2028.
