The South Korean currency exchange Coinzest reported that it accidentally transferred more than $ 5 million in Bitcoins and Won (South Korean currency) to several traders registered in the exchange. As Coindesk Korea shows, the crash happened when exchange planned a WeGrow Tokens (WGT) airdrop, and somehow, the commands crossed and ended up sending the Bitcoins instead of the scheduled token. Amid the madness, in addition to Bitcoin, the Coinzest also accidentally sent some Korean won to the users.
According to the report, as soon as they noticed that their accounts were more than expected, users started a mass withdrawal from the platform which unexpectedly dropped Bitcoin's price below $ 50. The exchange, as soon as it identified the problem, asked users to return badly targeted funds and was able to restore their servers to a pre-release backup and recover some of the funds.
Although the exchange has notified those who took out the funds, a specialist heard by ChepCap believes that "there is no way CoinZest can obtain funds from customers who have already withdrawn" and no legal space to claim the reversal.
This new year has not been so good for South Korea's small and medium-sized exchanges. Two top executives at Komid were arrested last week for falsifying trading volume data after the courts found them guilty of fraud.