Bithumb accidentally gives away $44 billion to customers

[web3isgreat@indieweb.social]

Bithumb accidentally gives away $44 billion to customers

February 7, 2026
https://www.web3isgoinggreat.com/?id=bithumb-giveaway-error

[infoseepage@mastodon.social]

@web3isgreat I'd bet you anything this was an insider "mix up" and that there were a bunch of accounts established with fishy credentials which immediately began pushing the BTC through mixers the second the transaction started registering. This was probably a robbery disguised as a typo. $140m qualifies as one of the biggest robberies of all time.

[rtificial@infosec.exchange]

@web3isgreat @GossiTheDog

[maccruiskeen@social.linux.pizza]

@web3isgreat Is that supposed to be pronounced bit-humb or bi-thumb?

[f4grx@chaos.social]

@web3isgreat lmao

[0x575446@mastodon.social]

@web3isgreat

[groxx@hachyderm.io]

@Infoseepage @web3isgreat while I kinda agree, if they in fact got back all but *less* than one account worth... they really didn't do a very good job at siphoning that away. Could've taken many accounts worth in seconds.

[infoseepage@mastodon.social]

@groxx @web3isgreat Perhaps to not make it look like an obvious coordinated robbery. Set up a small number of accounts, make the typo/mistake, recover most of the money but $140m is still a LOT of loot. Reminds me of the movie "Logan Lucky" where they steal a shit ton of money, but let a bunch of it get recovered, because then the police have their "win" and their take from the theft is basically a indeterminate amount lost in the wind because nobody knew how much was stolen to begin with.

[groxx@hachyderm.io]

@Infoseepage @web3isgreat also fair, yea. 140m is more than enough for getting away with it

[infoseepage@mastodon.social]

@groxx @web3isgreat If you did this right, it looks like a catastrophic but non-criminal mistake on the part of the insider and not some coordinated action between them and holders of a bunch of funny accounts. If you plan it long enough, you set up the funny accounts at different times, from different IPs, etc. and it just looks like a bunch of random miscreants using the system who ran off with a sudden windfall.

[infoseepage@mastodon.social]

@groxx @web3isgreat Looking at the specifics, it sounds like they were able to recover all but what account, which probably had some sort of pre-arranged auto-transfer threshold engaged. That is was just one account's worth strongly implies to me that whoever was responsible for the "mixup" is the thief and that this wasn't a multi person operation. I'm curious as to when this occured and whether the decision to go through with it was triggered by the sudden recent drop in bitcoin price.

[infoseepage@mastodon.social]

@groxx @web3isgreat Like, they knew that they were only going to get one shot at it with their access to relevant systems and running of this special promotion and decided to go for it.

[megatronicthronbanks@mastodon.social]

@web3isgreat

'Accidentally'

No way this was a hack. No way!

[dianea@lgbtqia.space]

@web3isgreat

This screams "inside job"

[johntimaeus@infosec.exchange]

@web3isgreat

By my understanding of contracts, they owe each customer the amount promised. Roast them all in debtors jail until they pay up.

[mike805@noc.social]

@johntimaeus @web3isgreat Code is law. Finders keepers!