STORY: ::FileSouth Korea’s Bithumb crypto exchange has apologized for a $44-billion mistake, after accidentally giving away 620,000 bitcoins as part of a customer rewards campaign.The company said it had restricted trading and withdrawals for the 695 affected customers shortly after the error on Friday.And that it had recovered 99.7% of the bitcoins as of Saturday night.The exchange had planned to distribute small cash rewards of 2,000 Korean won, worth about $1.40 , or more, to each user as part of a promotional event. But instead, winners received at least 2,000 bitcoins each, media reports said.In a statement, Bithumb said the incident was unrelated to external hacking or security breaches, and there were no problems with system security or customer asset management.But South Korea’s financial regulators said the incident “has exposed the vulnerabilities and risks of virtual assets.”After an emergency meeting, the regulators said in a statement, they would review Bithumb and other crypto exchanges’ internal control systems, as well as their holdings and operations of virtual assets.And if irregularities are found, an on-site inspection would be launched, the statement said.Bitcoin is the world’s largest cryptocurrency.Charts from the Bithumb exchange show Bitcoin prices briefly slumped 17% on Friday evening after the incident, but later recovered.
