Bithumb seeks court help to recover lost Bitcoin

Bithumb has launched legal proceedings to recover 7 Bitcoin still missing after a major payout error during a February promotional event.

The exchange filed for a provisional attachment to freeze assets of users who have not returned the funds, seeking court approval ahead of a civil lawsuit.

The incident occurred when Bithumb mistakenly distributed 620,000 Bitcoin instead of 620,000 Korean won to event winners, briefly valuing the error at around $42 billion.

Although most transactions were reversed within minutes, some funds had already been moved, leaving a portion unrecovered.

Bithumb said it recovered 99.7% of the assets on the same day and covered losses from the remaining sold Bitcoin using its own reserves.

The exchange has since reclaimed most of the funds through direct outreach, but a small number of users have refused to return the remaining Bitcoin, prompting legal escalation.

Following the incident, regulators in South Korea introduced stricter requirements, mandating exchanges to reconcile balances every five minutes to prevent similar errors.

At the time of reporting, Bitcoin price was $71,294.33.