What if you received 2000 BTC?

[Furball808]

Bitcoin really isn’t doing very well these days but could this mistake be one of the reasons why it was dragged down even further?

Bithumb, one of South Korea's crypto exchanges, said Saturday it has recovered almost all of the 620,000 bitcoins mistakenly sent to users.

According to Bithumb, it had mistakenly sent 620,000 bitcoins to 249 users who participated in a promotional event around 7 p.m. on Friday, which translated into an average of 2,490 bitcoins worth 244 billion won (US$166 million) to a single user.

An employee mistakenly put BTC instead of KRW (korean won) and sent the money. They halted the activities of the users immediately. Can you just imagine if you were one of the users who randomly received that amount of bitcoin?

[ContentWriter]

Bitcoin really isn’t doing very well these days but could this mistake be one of the reasons why it was dragged down even further?

Bithumb, one of South Korea's crypto exchanges, said Saturday it has recovered almost all of the 620,000 bitcoins mistakenly sent to users.

According to Bithumb, it had mistakenly sent 620,000 bitcoins to 249 users who participated in a promotional event around 7 p.m. on Friday, which translated into an average of 2,490 bitcoins worth 244 billion won (US$166 million) to a single user.

An employee mistakenly put BTC instead of KRW (korean won) and sent the money. They halted the activities of the users immediately. Can you just imagine if you were one of the users who randomly received that amount of bitcoin?

To start with, their accounts were frozen so there was no way of withdrawing and spending the bitcoins. And from the news, the event happened on Friday and I don't think it is responsible for "why it was dragged down even further." A direct hack on a big exchange could affect the market noticeably, but the event at Bithumb wasn't really out of control of the exchange. Anyway, what attracted me was your heading. If I legitimately received 2000 BTC, I'd simply solve my problems. I mean those money can solve. There are still things that money cannot buy or solve.

[MusaMohamed]

According to Bithumb, it had mistakenly sent 620,000 bitcoins to 249 users who participated in a promotional event around 7 p.m. on Friday, which translated into an average of 2,490 bitcoins worth 244 billion won (US$166 million) to a single user.

An employee mistakenly put BTC instead of KRW (korean won) and sent the money. They halted the activities of the users immediately. Can you just imagine if you were one of the users who randomly received that amount of bitcoin?

It's not like your bitcoins at all, it's only the number credited to your account balance and it's only a number on your computer or mobile device screen. It will only become your coins if you withdrawn these coins successfully to your Bitcoin non custodial wallets. Until that time of successful withdrawal, you don't have any bitcoin as gift from Bithumb.

Remember that on centralized exchanges, in your accounts, the numbers you see in your account balance is not your coins, as if later you won't withdraw your coins successfully, you will have $0 money at the end.

It's more accurate to say that mistake is in crediting account balance, not to send any coin to users.

Reminder: do not keep your money in online accounts.

[rat03gopoh]

You should only be surprised to receive bitcoin on-chain; the rest is just a dream. Even low-level scams offer unlimited free bitcoin giveaways in their platofrms.
But let's focus on the numbers in this case. I think Bithumb is just boasting about 650k bitcoins I don't believe they have that much in reserves. Or they've (inadvertently) demonstrated how flawed their accounting system is: No alarm/limit for exceeding the input amount compared to the actual records???.

[retreat]

Actually, it was not a mistake in sending Bitcoin, but only a mistake in crediting a certain amount of Bitcoin to the user's account, so there was no loss because when the user tried to cash it out, Bithumb immediately froze the user's account and everything was handled as quickly as possible. The only effect was a drop in the price of Bitcoin on the exchange, and everything is now back to normal.

This is one of the drawbacks of centralised exchanges, where they can make mistakes that can disrupt their operations.

[Peanutswar]

If this will be direct deposited into your wallet and already confirmed in the chain well congratulations because you have that tons of bitcoin but if its holding with the centralized exchange i guess you dont get overwhelmed first because they have the rights to freeze your account and sadly holding your funds aside from the wrong sent bitcoin. Also for sure they will immediately made a hold most of the withdrawals if this is a system error.

[Luke3bird]

If this will be direct deposited into your wallet and already confirmed in the chain well congratulations because you have that tons of bitcoin but if its holding with the centralized exchange i guess you dont get overwhelmed first because they have the rights to freeze your account and sadly holding your funds aside from the wrong sent bitcoin. Also for sure they will immediately made a hold most of the withdrawals if this is a system error.

Receivers can sell their coins on the market and cause a price crash with suddenly massive selling pressure but centralized exchanges will quickly detect strange things on their platforms, figure out what happened in short time and take proper actions.

Proper actions mean CEX will not blindly, carelessly and easily approve big withdrawal request from user and in this accident from hundreds of users like 2000 bitcoin withdrawal request is insane. It will possibly not be approved automatically but will have to go through manual review before any approval is made. Then Bithumb did not allow any users who received mistakenly distributed 2,000 BTC to withdraw big fund at all.

[X-ray]

Even if you received 2000 BTC due to mistake, it means nothing. That money will never escape the exchange and few hours later everything will be rolled back.

According to the report the fund is 99.7% recovered. There are probably some people who took the funds out very early and the exchange was unable to recover but it could be a future lawsuit.

There is honestly bigger question here, how a CEX could credit bitcoin to their users that easily? did their bitcoins can be created out of thin air in their internal ledger? That's much better question to ask.

[Woodie]

Receivers can sell their coins on the market and cause a price crash with suddenly massive selling pressure but centralized exchanges will quickly detect strange things on their platforms, figure out what happened in short time and take proper actions.

2000 Bitcoins are not pocket change, if this money was to "airdrop"  in your pocket you would probably wait a week to hear from anybody then the trial transaction just to make sure this is real otherwise it's not like someone has pending orders for a Bugatti that when money comes in you buy whatever you have been longing for...

Proper actions mean CEX will not blindly, carelessly and easily approve big withdrawal request from user and in this accident from hundreds of users like 2000 bitcoin withdrawal request is insane.

A CEX is the worst destination to cashout big sums... T& C's apply !!

[shinratensei_]

I'm more curious about what the employee gonna face for that big mistake than thinking about the scenario where I will receive that 2000 BTC because I know it will end up in the account getting frozen.
Those aren't some measly amount and I doubt the employee could pay that hefty sum. Surely the exchange won't just ignore it. Those money need to be recovered one way or another hence could result in a fine.

Imagine getting paid not even crumb of that and now you need to compensate for it. Worst fate to be in.

[sheenshane]

An employee mistakenly put BTC instead of KRW (korean won) and sent the money. They halted the activities of the users immediately. Can you just imagine if you were one of the users who randomly received that amount of bitcoin?

It's totally useless because the transactions are made on-chain, meaning that anytime an exchange can freeze a user's account to confiscate the number of Bitcoin that has been sent mistakenly.  I dont think you can also quickly transfer it into your non-custodial wallet since transfers take time before they proceed.
So it's totally useless, it only hurts you, seeing that you almost have that huge amount, but it doesn't happen.

Proper actions mean CEX will not blindly, carelessly and easily approve big withdrawal request from user and in this accident from hundreds of users like 2000 bitcoin withdrawal request is insane.

A CEX is the worst destination to cashout big sums... T& C's apply !!

That's definitely right, and I tend to agree!
Sometimes it takes days before it will transfer to your wallet, and usually, as their excuse, their team is investigating it first before they let it out.

[FinneysTrueVision]

I wonder how many times this “mistake” has happened before. If they had no way of detecting that so much Bitcoin was being inadvertently credited to users, then it’s possible that some rogue employee could be able to get away with stealing small amounts of BTC or altcoins over time, and if they were caught, they could just say that they got the currencies mixed up.

[davis196]

Bitcoin really isn’t doing very well these days but could this mistake be one of the reasons why it was dragged down even further?

Bithumb, one of South Korea's crypto exchanges, said Saturday it has recovered almost all of the 620,000 bitcoins mistakenly sent to users.

According to Bithumb, it had mistakenly sent 620,000 bitcoins to 249 users who participated in a promotional event around 7 p.m. on Friday, which translated into an average of 2,490 bitcoins worth 244 billion won (US$166 million) to a single user.

An employee mistakenly put BTC instead of KRW (korean won) and sent the money. They halted the activities of the users immediately. Can you just imagine if you were one of the users who randomly received that amount of bitcoin?

So the crypto exchange platform sent lots of BTC to certain users, but then it immediately blocked their accounts, so they don't withdraw the BTC? The crypto exchange users basically didn't get anything, so there's no point in discussing such news. How can an employee mistaken BTC to a fiat currency(Korean won)? There must be something totally wrong with the crypto exchange's withdrawal system, if an employee can make such mistake. This is yet another example of why nobody should use centralized crypto trading platforms. I have never received a big amount of BTC in my wallet by mistake and I probably never will. I'm not that lucky.

[m2017]

Bitcoin really isn’t doing very well these days but could this mistake be one of the reasons why it was dragged down even further?

Bithumb, one of South Korea's crypto exchanges, said Saturday it has recovered almost all of the 620,000 bitcoins mistakenly sent to users.
 
According to Bithumb, it had mistakenly sent 620,000 bitcoins to 249 users who participated in a promotional event around 7 p.m. on Friday, which translated into an average of 2,490 bitcoins worth 244 billion won (US$166 million) to a single user.

I saw this news yesterday, and I also suspect that the current collapse may be connected to this unfortunate incident. I'm curious to know what punishment the unfortunate employee who made this mistake will receive. A fatal mistake.

An employee mistakenly put BTC instead of KRW (korean won) and sent the money. They halted the activities of the users immediately. Can you just imagine if you were one of the users who randomly received that amount of bitcoin?

Oh, I don't even know what I would have done. While I probably wouldn't have "sold my soul" for 2BTC, I would have had serious doubts and... temptations for 2,000BTC. 

But if you look at the situation from the perspective of the users who participated in the promotion, what can blame them for? They received their gift and probably had every moral right to take it. Is that true? Or perhaps they acted dishonestly, since the promotional terms didn't list bitcoin (2000BTC) as a prize, meaning the users should have returned this 2,000BTC, realizing the exchanger's mistake.

[Uhwuchukwu53]

If this will be direct deposited into your wallet and already confirmed in the chain well congratulations because you have that tons of bitcoin but if its holding with the centralized exchange i guess you dont get overwhelmed first because they have the rights to freeze your account and sadly holding your funds aside from the wrong sent bitcoin. Also for sure they will immediately made a hold most of the withdrawals if this is a system error.

I totally agree with you this align with my view over this issue, there is no way this can be on CEX and the receiver with be overwhelmed because a lot of tracing is possible to recover it as wrong transaction or mistake, but if this really happened as op narrative though not ignorant that mistake occur in running some transaction but this kind of mistake for me have not show sense of details to the sender it means his multi tasking because the mistake is huge. Any transactions on chain I don't see it as mistake because it's easily traceable, some time as people do said is not traceable and it's anonymous how is it possible to erase IP address, except the sender ignore never to carry out search.

[Dictator69]

An employee mistakenly put BTC instead of KRW (korean won) and sent the money. They halted the activities of the users immediately. Can you just imagine if you were one of the users who randomly received that amount of bitcoin?

What? Is this real? How can an exchange like this send that much bitcoin to all the participants? If I had received that amount of money by mistake, I would have returned it. I don't care how much the amount is, if someone has not gifted it, or I have not earned it. I am not keeping it.

Simple is that.

But I could get to flex my colleagues and also scare my boss, that look I am rich and now leaving the company haha. He might have raised my salary.

[Die_empty]

To start with, their accounts were frozen so there was no way of withdrawing and spending the bitcoins.

The user was able to sell 1,788 bitcoins. The exchange was able to recover 93% of the sold Bitcoin but lost about 125 bitcoins. It means that the account was not frozen immediately.

What? Is this real? How can an exchange like this send that much bitcoin to all the participants? If I had received that amount of money by mistake, I would have returned it. I don't care how much the amount is, if someone has not gifted it, or I have not earned it. I am not keeping it.

Returning it would be the best option because it is a criminal offense to keep it. Since it is a centralized platform, it would be easy to trace the user because of KYC. It is better to return it than to live as a fugitive or end up in jail. 

[passwordnow]

If someone has found that error, they'd for sure going to request a quick withdrawal on that time. But, the system might flag that and will have to wait for the approval of the withdrawal unless it's automatically approved by the system. If someone don't want to return that mistakenly sent Bitcoins, they'll tell that user that suing is possible for them if they'll not voluntarily return it. So, in short that they have a choice not to return it but if it's in the exchange, they'll ban the user and it's still in their platform. They'll choose their fate with that but I know someone in that situation will think of what most will think.

[bitLeap]

Bitcoin really isn’t doing very well these days but could this mistake be one of the reasons why it was dragged down even further?

Bithumb, one of South Korea's crypto exchanges, said Saturday it has recovered almost all of the 620,000 bitcoins mistakenly sent to users.

According to Bithumb, it had mistakenly sent 620,000 bitcoins to 249 users who participated in a promotional event around 7 p.m. on Friday, which translated into an average of 2,490 bitcoins worth 244 billion won (US$166 million) to a single user.

An employee mistakenly put BTC instead of KRW (korean won) and sent the money. They halted the activities of the users immediately. Can you just imagine if you were one of the users who randomly received that amount of bitcoin?

The carelessness of Bithumb employees made the market respond very badly, from 2000 KRW to 2000 BTC is the craziest joke and will be the best fairy tale of the future. Despite the faux pas it seems that every user who received the 2000 BTC airdrop was unable to withdraw the reward, and all accounts are in the process of being locked out. Unfortunately, the fallout is a clear warning that human error on an exchange is inevitable.

[Outhue]

What I couldn't figure out is if some people are able to withdraw instantly and the withdrawal gets processed before they knew that they have fucked up? I read about this news hours back but I can't see where someone successfully withdraw the bitcoin.  

There is no real win here if no one is able to withdraw the Bitcoin, such incidents benefits no one but the exchange, because those Bitcoin never left.