Bithumb Pledges 110 Percent Compensation for Bitcoin Incident as Financial Services Commission Holds Emergency Meeting and Launches Full Inspection
Bithumb Pledges 110 Percent Compensation for Bitcoin Incident as Financial Services Commission Holds Emergency Meeting and Launches Full Inspection
As a large-scale Bitcoin mispayment incident at the virtual asset exchange Bithumb moves into a customer compensation phase, financial authorities have launched immediate, comprehensive inspections, spreading the situation into a regulatory issue.
According to Bithumb on the 7th, customer losses from the Bitcoin mispayment incident that occurred the previous day are estimated at around 1 billion won. In a notice, Bithumb CEO Lee Jae-won stated that cases were confirmed in which some customers executed trades at unfavorable prices due to panic selling amid a sharp drop in Bitcoin prices immediately after the incident. Bithumb plans to provide compensation totaling 110%—the full realized selling profit plus an additional 10%—to customers who sold Bitcoin at low prices between 7:30 p.m. and 7:45 p.m., the time window of the incident. Compensation will be automatically paid within a week after data verification.
Separately, Bithumb will make a blanket payment of 20,000 won to all users who accessed the service during the incident window and, through a later announcement, waive trading fees for all listed assets for one week. In addition, to prevent a recurrence of similar incidents, the exchange announced plans to establish a 100 billion won “Customer Protection Fund,” enhance asset verification systems, reinforce multi-approval processes, strengthen AI-based abnormal transaction detection systems, and conduct audits by external professional institutions as part of broader internal control improvements.
Immediately after the incident, financial authorities also moved swiftly. The Financial Services Commission (FSC) convened an emergency inspection meeting at the Government Complex Seoul that afternoon with related agencies including the Financial Supervisory Service and the Financial Intelligence Unit, and summoned CEO Lee Jae-won to directly review the circumstances of the incident and the compensation plan. FSC Vice Chairman Kwon Dae-young characterized the case as one that exposed structural vulnerabilities in the virtual asset market, calling for an assessment of user damages and the prompt execution of compensation.
The FSC plans to form an emergency response team with the FIU and FSS, involving the Joint Consultative Council of Digital Asset Exchanges, to conduct an intensive inspection of Bithumb and then expand the scope to other exchanges. If any illegalities are identified during the process, authorities will immediately move to on-site inspections, and they are also considering system improvements to enable continuous monitoring of exchanges’ virtual asset holdings.
Authorities also signaled institutional improvements linked to the second phase of virtual asset legislation in the wake of the incident. Discussions include requiring virtual asset service providers to undergo periodic verification of held assets by external institutions and codifying strict liability for operators when user losses occur due to IT incidents and similar events. Industry observers note that while most of the erroneously distributed Bitcoin has been recovered, legal responsibility surrounding the unrecovered portion and the strengthening of internal control standards are likely to emerge as key issues going forward.
*Disclaimer: This article is for investment reference only, and no responsibility is assumed for any investment losses incurred based on it. The content should be interpreted solely for informational purposes.*
<저작권자 ⓒ 코인리더스 무단전재 및 재배포 금지>
|
  많이 본 기사
English 많이 본 기사
|
