South Korea's Bithumb exchange has secured a court victory in its effort to recover funds stemming from a February error that mistakenly credited customer accounts with approximately 620,000 Bitcoin.
The Seoul Central District Court ruled Thursday that a customer must return about $140,400 (194 million won) in proceeds from selling Bitcoin that was incorrectly credited to their account. The court determined the proceeds constituted unjust enrichment. Bithumb filed the claim in March following the February 6 error.
This marks the exchange's second court victory in two days. The same court awarded Bithumb $3,620 (5 million won) on Wednesday. Two additional claims totaling approximately $372,700 (514.8 million won) remain pending, bringing the total recovery efforts across four claims to roughly $517,000 (714 million won).
How the Error Occurred
The miscredit happened during a random-box promotion offering small cash prizes. A staff member entered Bitcoin instead of Korean won into the system, resulting in internal records showing approximately 620,000 BTC distributed across hundreds of accounts. This figure far exceeded Bithumb's actual Bitcoin holdings of about 40,000 BTC.
Trading continued for roughly 40 minutes before the exchange halted activity. Approximately 1,788 BTC reached the order book during this window. The error caused the BTC/KRW trading pair to decline about 17%.
Recovery and Regulatory Response
Bithumb reversed most of the false credits the same day and reported by March 10 that it had recovered 99.7% of the Bitcoin involved in the error. Some affected traders received 110% compensation, while the exchange sought to freeze outstanding coins.
The incident prompted an emergency review by South Korean financial regulators, who classified it as a control failure. The Financial Supervisory Service determined that mistakenly credited balances could qualify as unjust enrichment, supporting Bithumb's recovery efforts. Following the review, authorities required licensed exchanges to reconcile customer ledgers with actual holdings every five minutes. The Bank of Korea also considered implementing a market circuit breaker in response.
