Bithumb’s ‘fat finger’ sends 40 billion worth of Bitcoin to customers

Bithumb, a well-known South Korean crypto platform, wanted to attract new customers to its business and promised everyone who signed up during a certain period that they would receive some 2,000 Korean won (just over 1 euro). Due to a so-called “fat finger trade” Bithumb ended up sending them 2,000 Bitcoins each. 700 of the platform’s customers briefly became multimillionaires. The error has since been rectified.

BITHUMB ACCIDENTALLY SENDS OUT 2000 BTC TO USERS WHO IMMEDIATELY MARKET DUMP

A major operational mistake at South Korea’s crypto exchange Bithumb reportedly led to the accidental distribution of 2,000 BTC ($130M) instead of 2,000 KRW ($1.50) as a rewards payout.

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— Bitcoin News (@BitcoinNewsCom) February 6, 2026

Fat finger trade

The so-called fat finger trade, in which a human error on a keyboard causes a huge loss for a company or bank, isn’t exactly new in South Korea (and Japan). These errors likely occur more frequently in Asia due to the culture of extremely long workdays and minimal sleep. The most well-known is the Samsung fat finger, which disrupted the South Korean stock market in 2018. The company had originally intended to pay a small dividend to all its employees, but a “fat finger” suddenly resulted in billions of new shares being issued (and transferred to the employees).

It took about 37 minutes for the error to be discovered, after which trading in Samsung shares on the Kospi (the local stock exchange in Seoul) was halted. During those 37 minutes, 21 of the company’s employees had converted all their new wealth into cash, netting them approximately 8 million euros each. Samsung subsequently recovered the money through a lawsuit.

99%

This time, it was Bithumb that made the mistake of sending Bitcoins instead of Won to approximately 695 new customers. They briefly felt like multimillionaires, but (fortunately for Bithumb) couldn’t convert the cryptocurrencies into fiat.

Bithumb has since recovered approximately 99% of all Bitcoins they sent.