The 620,000 Bitcoin Blunder: Bithumb Turns to Courts to Claw Back Remaining BTC

South Korea’s Bithumb, still reeling from one of the most embarrassing operational blunders in crypto history, has taken its fight to recover the last scraps of an accidental Bitcoin windfall to the courts.

According to a latest report from Chosun Biz, a local media outlet, the exchange filed for provisional seizure on roughly 7 BTC—valued at about 700 million won at the time of the error—that remain in the hands of users who have refused to hand them back.

The move marks a hardening stance more than two months after the fiasco erupted on Feb. 6.

During a routine “random box” promotional event, Bithumb planned to distribute modest cash prizes totaling just 620,000 won—roughly 2,000 to 50,000 won per winner among 249 participants.

Instead, a staff member entered the unit as “Bitcoin” rather than Korean won. The system dutifully credited users with 620,000 BTC in total, a sum worth around 60 trillion won (more than $40 billion) at prevailing prices.

Within 35 minutes, the exchange detected the error, froze trading and withdrawals for the 695 affected accounts, and began clawing back the funds. But some recipients had already sold portions of the windfall during the brief window before the freeze. 

The sell-off triggered a sharp, localized drop in Bitcoin’s price on the exchange. Bithumb covered those losses with its own money, offered extra compensation to affected traders, and issued public apologies. The exchange later claimed to have recovered 99.7% of the erroneous credits through internal ledger reversals. 

The Holdouts

By early April, the vast majority of the overpaid Bitcoin had been returned or offset. What remained unrecovered boiled down to a handful of BTC still sitting with a small number of users who have declined repeated requests to return them.

Bithumb officials say they first tried persuasion. When that failed, the company turned to legal action.

The provisional seizure application targets the remaining 7 BTC and associated accounts. Under Korean civil procedure, such a measure can freeze assets quickly, often within days, while a full lawsuit for unjust enrichment proceeds.

Legal observers say the exchange is on strong ground. Courts have generally ruled that mistakenly transferred assets must be returned in kind, not at the price on the day of the error. With Bitcoin now trading significantly higher than in February, some recipients could face painful shortfalls if they have already spent or converted the coins.

One industry source familiar with the matter put it bluntly: “Some are arguing it was the company’s mistake, so why should they return anything? But the law doesn’t work that way when it comes to clear overpayments.”

The lingering fallout

The February incident already drew heavy scrutiny from regulators and lawmakers, who questioned how such a basic input error could bypass internal controls. It also came just before Bithumb was hit with a separate 37 billion won fine and partial business suspension for anti-money laundering failures.

Bithumb has not commented publicly on the latest legal filing beyond confirming the provisional seizure application. The exchange says it continues to prioritize customer asset protection while pursuing full recovery of the remaining funds.

For the handful of users now in the crosshairs, the party that began with an apparent crypto jackpot in February may be heading toward an expensive court battle.

This case is being watched closely across the industry as a test of how exchanges and the courts handle the unique challenges of reversing errors in volatile digital assets. 

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