The central bank published its 2025 Payment and Settlement Report on April 13 and said the report includes the recent \u201cBithumb exchange Bitcoin erroneous payment incident\u201d as a reference case.<\/p>\n
The report gives the Bithumb incident<\/a> formal regulatory significance at a moment when South Korean officials are paying closer attention to exchange controls, internal approvals and asset verification.<\/p>\n The Bank of Korea backed safeguards, such as circuit breakers and supported stronger checks between exchange ledgers and blockchain balances.<\/p>\n Bithumb Incident Enters Official Risk Review <\/p>\n The Bank of Korea\u2019s April 13 release placed the Bithumb case inside a broader review of payment and settlement developments during 2025.<\/p>\n The same release also flagged stablecoin volatility as a reference issue, showing that crypto-related disruptions now sit within the central bank\u2019s formal review of settlement infrastructure and payment-system risk.<\/p>\n That inclusion is likely to feed ongoing discussions in Seoul around operational standards for exchanges.<\/p>\n Once a central bank report singles out an exchange failure<\/a>, the event becomes part of the policy record and a basis for further supervisory action.<\/p>\n February Payout Error Hit Bithumb Trading <\/p>\n The underlying incident dates to February, when Bithumb mistakenly distributed Bitcoin to 249 users during a promotional event after intending to send 620,000 won.<\/p>\n Some recipients sold the incorrectly credited assets before the exchange froze the affected accounts, and Bitcoin briefly dropped on Bithumb as the error spread through trading<\/a>.<\/p>\n Bithumb recovered 618,212 BTC immediately and later reclaimed 93% of the 1,788 BTC that had already been sold, leaving 125 BTC unrecovered.<\/p>\n The exchange suspended transactions and withdrawals on affected accounts that evening.<\/p>\n The scale of the error drew attention because it showed how internal exchange records can feed directly into live trading conditions.<\/p>\n Customer balances, sell orders and collateral<\/a> positions were all affected within a short period.<\/p>\n Regulators Tighten Focus on Exchange Controls <\/p>\n South Korean regulators opened a probe soon after the incident.<\/p>\n The Financial Supervisory Service launched an investigation and warned it would respond firmly to conduct that disrupts market order.<\/p>\n At a parliamentary hearing days later, Bithumb CEO Lee Jae-won apologized and said the exchange\u2019s internal control system had failed to detect that more tokens than available had been credited to users.<\/p>\n Local reporting said the incident pushed regulators to examine approval systems, monitoring practices and reserve verification more closely.<\/p>\n South Korean authorities also discussed broader reforms involving the Financial Services Commission, the Financial Intelligence Unit, the Financial Supervisory Service and the Digital Asset Exchange Alliance.<\/p>\n South Korea Weighs Additional Safeguards <\/p>\n The Bank of Korea\u2019s report gives fresh momentum to proposals for emergency trading<\/a> controls and tighter operational standards at exchanges.<\/p>\n The central bank supported protections modeled on Korea Exchange safeguards, including mechanisms to catch irregularities before they spill into trading.<\/p>\n For South Korea\u2019s crypto market, the Bithumb case has become a reference point for how operational failures can trigger wider disruption.<\/p>\n The central bank\u2019s decision to include it in an official settlement-risk review signals that exchange safeguards now sit firmly inside the country\u2019s mainstream regulatory<\/a> agenda.<\/p>\n Recommended Secure Partners<\/p>\n The post Bank of Korea Floats Crypto Circuit Breakers After Bithumb Blunder<\/a> appeared first on ccn.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Key Takeaways The Bank of Korea included Bithumb\u2019s recent Bitcoin payout error in its latest payment and settlement…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3405,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[456],"tags":[845,2819,3068,846,3067,3066,33],"class_list":{"0":"post-3404","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-bank-of-korea","8":"tag-bank-of-korea","9":"tag-bithumb","10":"tag-bithumb-blunder","11":"tag-bok","12":"tag-operational-risk","13":"tag-settlement-report","14":"tag-south-korea"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3404","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3404"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3404\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a> Translated chart showing Bitcoin\u2019s price on Bithumb (blue) versus Upbit (yellow) following Bithumb\u2019s erroneous Bitcoin transfers. Source: Bank of Korea <\/p>\n