South Korean Crypto Firm Bithumb Fumbles, Triggers BTC Sell-Off

• Bithumb accidentally sent $40 billion worth of BTC to the winners of a promotional campaign.
• BTC price slipped to around $68,500.
• Bithumb denied any external hack or security breach.

Bithumb, a South Korean crypto firm, accidentally transferred Bitcoin tokens in large numbers to its users. This triggered a sell-off on the platform, possibly and briefly affecting BTC prices on the chart. The flagship token has declined slightly since the report of the incident surfaced. All sights are also on a whale wallet that recently sent bitcoins to Binance.

Bithumb and the Accident

The erroneous distribution, as described in media reports, happened on Friday, wherein the South Korean crypto firm, Bithumb, accidentally transferred 2,000 BTC to every winner of a promotional campaign. They were originally entitled to a cash reward of 2,000 Korean won, or $1.37. But, Bithumb ended up giving away a total of $40 billion worth of the token to winners.

According to a statement by Bithumb, the platform has recovered 99.7% of the token and has denied any external hacking or security breach behind the incident.

A mistaken distribution of 620,000 bitcoins led to a halt of trading and withdrawal functions for almost 695 affected customers. The measure was reportedly taken in just 35 minutes after the incident.

BTC Price Retraced

BTC price was earlier seen trading above $70k. It has now retraced its steps back to around $68,500. The value is still up by 5.68% over the last 24 hours. It did record a new low of $62,704.45 in earlier hours. Notably, BTC price was above $92k on January 20, 2026. The days that followed saw the token decline significantly.

Estimates for the next 3 months have been revised to $88,862, up by almost 26.07% from the current value. BTC price prediction also forecasts a monthly rise of approximately 9.46%, taking its value to $77,151. Bitcoin tokens are currently estimated to move around a maximum value of $100k in 2026.

Any Further Sell-Off?

A whale wallet, known as Bitcoin OG wallet, transferred 1,599 bitcoins to Binance. Their collective worth was $112 million at the time of the transaction. This has sent waves across the market, speculating if any other sell-off is on the table.

The same wallet was earlier reported to have withdrawn 80,000 ETH from Binance, but remains controversial for rumors around reducing its BTC holdings. With reported links to Garrett Gin, the wallet remains at the center of the stage for any possible controversial sell-offs.

Highlighted Crypto News Today:

US Stock Indexes High Close Paves Way for Crypto Market Jumps