Bithumb, the South Korean crypto exchange, stirred a crypto hysteria after it accidentally showed users 2,000 BTC airdropped to their wallets as part of a promo campaign.
Hundreds of Bithumb users were supposed to receive 2,000 KRW each ($1.50) as part of this promotional activity. An internal system glitch, however, notified each of the reward-eligible users about receiving 2,000 BTC worth $130 million instead.
The Seoul-based exchange is touted among the largest crypto exchanges in South Korea, that has been in operations since 2014. It posted a blog post on Friday apologizing to its users for the incident.
“Bithumb immediately recognized the abnormal transaction through its internal control system and promptly restricted transactions for the relevant account,” the blog said.
As per media reports, an the error was made by an employee. Reports also claim that no Bitcoin were moved on-chain and that the abnormal balances only showed to Bithumb’s errored internal ledger.
The airdrop notification triggered a major sell-off of “fake” BTC on the exchange, that led BTC price on it to crash to $58,000 on Bithumb. The exchange said, this price crash was handled within five minutes of being identified.
The incident has opened floodgates of jokes and memes on social media.
The exchange particularly highlighted that users should not suspect any security breach or hack incident.
“This incident is unrelated to any external hacking or security breach. It is understood that this incident did not result in any loss or damage to customer assets,” its blog said.
In the coming days, the exchange has promised to release a detailed report about the incident. For now, elaborate details remain unclear.