Bithumb Wins First Two of Four Lawsuits Over 620,000 BTC Error

South Korean exchange Bithumb has secured first-instance court rulings in two of four lawsuits it filed to recover money from users who sold Bitcoin the platform mistakenly credited to their accounts in February. The underlying event, a 620,000 BTC internal crediting error worth more than $40 billion at the time, is confirmed by two independent outlets. The specific ruling amounts and case numbers trace to a single report, from Chosun Biz, that both outlets cite.

What Two Independent Sources Confirm

The Block and Cointelegraph both report that Bithumb won at least one court decision tied to the fat-finger incident. Both also confirm the core numbers behind the original error: 620,000 BTC credited to hundreds of user accounts, with a value cited between roughly $40 billion and $43 billion depending on the Bitcoin price used at the time of reporting.

Bithumb has said the mix-up happened during a promotional event on February 6, 2026. The exchange intended to distribute 620,000 won, about $420 at the time, to 249 users. An employee reportedly selected Bitcoin instead of Korean won as the payment unit, and the system credited each account with 620,000 BTC rather than 620,000 won.

Recovery Numbers, and What Got Away

Bithumb says it clawed back 618,212 BTC, or 99.7% of the mistakenly issued balance, after freezing affected accounts. Before the freeze took effect, users had already sold 1,788 BTC worth of the credited funds. That gap is what the exchange has been chasing through the courts since March, when it filed four unjust enrichment lawsuits against users who sold the Bitcoin and kept the cash.

The Rulings, According to a Single Detailed Report

The specific figures below come from the Chosun Biz report relayed by Cointelegraph and have not been independently corroborated by a second named source. The Seoul Central District Court reportedly ruled in Bithumb’s favor on two separate days last week: a claim for 194 million won, about $140,000, and a smaller claim for 5 million won, about $3,600.

Two more lawsuits remain undecided, seeking roughly 14.8 million won, about $10,700, and 500 million won, about $362,000. Both resolved cases reportedly proceeded through service by public notice, meaning court documents could not be delivered to the defendants through ordinary means.

Reading the Numbers Correctly

The 99.7% recovery rate and the 1,788 BTC shortfall are the figures that matter for anyone tracking exchange operational risk. They show a large error was mostly reversible through account freezes, while the remainder became a legal collections problem measured in individual claims worth thousands, not billions.

Bithumb has previously outlined plans for a 2028 IPO alongside an overhaul of its internal controls, a move that followed directly from the February error. The Financial Supervisory Service in South Korea has also opened a sanctions process tied to the incident, according to the Cointelegraph report, though details of that process were not independently confirmed by a second source.

Two lawsuits remain pending in Seoul. Their outcomes will determine whether Bithumb closes out the full set of claims tied to the 1,788 BTC that left its system before the freeze.

Sources

• theblock.co
• cointelegraph.com