Billions in a few minutes. The South Korean krytodollar Company wrongly distributed to users 40 billion dollars in bitcoin

A South Korean Kryptonite stock exchange wrongly distributed more than 40 billion dollars (about 32 billion pounds) to customers in bitumen, making them for a few moments of millionaires.

The company planned to give users a symbolic reward of 2,000 yens (about $1.37), but on Friday, because of a technical error, 2,000 bitumens were transferred to each customer.

Platform Bittrek apologised for the incident, stressing that the error was quickly confirmed and that almost all the scattered coins were mistaken.

According to the official announcement, trade and withdrawal funds for the 695 affected customers were blocked within 35 minutes of the technical defect.

The company later announced that it had recovered 99.7% of the 620 thousand Bitcoins, which were accidentally sent.

“We want to make it clear that this incident has no connection with external attacks or security violations and that there is no problem with the safety of the system or with the management of client assets,” said Bitker in a statement Friday.

At an emergency meeting held Saturday (7 February), South Korean financial regulatory authority announced that it would investigate the incident. Any sign of illegal activity will lead to formal investigations by the Financial Supervision Service (FSS).

Bittker pledged to co-operate fully with regulators. We will take this incident as a lesson and give priority to customer confidence and tranquillity, before external growth,” said executive director Lee Jae-won.

The company plans to pay 20,000 yena (about $13.66) in compensation for all customers who were using the platform at the moment of the incident, as well as to lift trade fees, among other measures.

Bitkem also announced that it will improve verification systems and use artificial intelligence to detect abnormal transactions.

This incident is expected to fuel debate over the need for stricter regulatory controls in the financial sector.

In April 2024, the American bank Citigroup wrongly borrowed $81 trillion instead of $280 in a client's account. Two employees did not notice the mistake before transaction processing, but the bank annulled it within hours after a third employee found out the mistake, the Financial Times reported. /Reuters/ Periscope.