South Korea’s Bithumb gives away over US$40 billion in a bit of a blunder

South Korean cryptocurrency exchange Bithumb said on Saturday it had accidentally given away more than US$40 billion worth of bitcoin to customers as promotional rewards, triggering a sharp sell-off on the exchange.
Bithumb apologised for the mistake, which took place on Friday, and said it had recovered 99.7 per cent of the 620,000 bitcoin, worth about US$44 billion at current prices. It had restricted trading and withdrawals for the 695 affected customers within 35 minutes of the erroneous...