South Korea's Bithumb mistakenly sends 620,000 bitcoins to users

Bithumb, one of South Korea's crypto exchanges, said Saturday it has recovered almost all of the 620,000 bitcoins mistakenly sent to users, which briefly dragged down the bitcoin price.

Report informs via Yonhap that, according to Bithumb, it had mistakenly sent 620,000 bitcoins to 249 users who participated in a promotional event around 7 p.m. on Friday, which translated into an average of 2,490 bitcoins worth 244 billion won (US$166 million) to a single user.

The crypto exchange halted the transactions and withdrawals of the users' accounts at 7:40 p.m.

Bithumb said it had recovered 618,212 bitcoins immediately and additionally recouped 93 percent of 1,788 bitcoins sold by the users.

Consequently, Bithumb still failed to recover 125 bitcoins.

The accident took place as a Bithumb employee mistakenly typed the payment unit as "BTC" instead of the "Korean won" for a reward to the users of the promotional event.