Seoul Court Orders Traders to Return Bitcoin Sent by Mistake

SEOUL — On Feb. 6, 2026, an employee at the South Korean exchange Bithumb made one of the most expensive typos in the industry’s history. Processing rewards for a promotional “random-box” event, the worker entered the payout unit as bitcoin instead of Korean won. The plan was to distribute 620,000 won — roughly $420 — across 249 users. What went out, on paper, was 620,000 BTC: more than $40 billion at the time.

The recovery, and the holdouts

Bithumb caught the error and clawed back about 99.7% of the mistakenly credited bitcoin. The gap was the users who moved first — selling or withdrawing before the exchange froze the accounts. Bithumb sued to recover the proceeds, and this week the Seoul Central District Court began ruling in its favor.

In decisions on Aug. 26 and 27, the court ordered two users to return the money as “unjust enrichment.” One case covered 194 million won (about $140,000); the other, 5 million won (about $3,600). Two of the four first-instance suits are now decided for the exchange, with more pending.

Why a bitcoin paper cares about a court clerk’s typo

Because the ruling draws the line between the base layer and everything built on top of it. On the Bitcoin network, a confirmed transaction is final; no one can reverse it. But the balance a user sees inside an exchange is not a bitcoin transaction — it is a database entry, a legal claim against the company. When that entry is wrong, the remedy is not cryptography. It is a lawsuit.

That is the quiet lesson under the eye-catching number. “Not your keys, not your coins” is usually invoked to warn about an exchange failing. Here it cuts the other way: the users never held keys, so the coins were never theirs to keep. The court simply confirmed it.

Bitcoin’s ledger is irreversible. An exchange’s spreadsheet is not — and a court can rewrite the second one.

The precedent

The rulings establish that Korean users who cash out clearly mistaken credits can be compelled to return the proceeds, shielding exchange operators from software-error losses. It is a narrow, sensible outcome. It also underlines how much of the “crypto” a typical customer touches is custodial IOUs rather than bitcoin itself — a distinction that matters far more the day an exchange’s error runs in the other direction, and there is no company left to sue.

Why it matters: the fortunes people think they hold on an exchange are legal claims, not bitcoin — reversible by a court in a way the network never is.

Figures — a Feb. 6, 2026 error crediting 620,000 BTC to 249 users, ~99.7% recovered, and Aug. 26–27 rulings on 194 million won and 5 million won — are per the reporting above. Won-to-dollar conversions are approximate and reflect the values cited at the time. Informational only — not financial advice.