South Korean regulators escalate investigation into Bithumb over Bitcoin mispayment incident

According to Yonhap News Agency, the Financial Supervisory Service of South Korea has upgraded the investigation level regarding the large-scale Bitcoin mispayment incident at Bithumb exchange from on-site inspection to formal audit, and has initiated a comprehensive investigation on the same day.

The Financial Supervisory Service stated that the nature of this incident is extremely serious, and additional personnel have been dispatched to conduct high-intensity audits, focusing on whether the exchange violated the "actual holding obligation," whether there are issues with "phantom currencies," and internal control loopholes. The investigation will primarily focus on the reasons behind Bithumb's actual holding of approximately 46,000 Bitcoins while mistakenly paying out 620,000 Bitcoins, as well as the asset custody and account consistency under its "ledger trading" model.

Financial authorities pointed out that this incident could undermine the overall trust in the virtual asset market and will verify whether the mistakenly paid Bitcoins have actual structural risks associated with large-scale withdrawals. Additionally, the internal approval loophole that allows a single operator to complete large transfers at Bithumb will also be closely examined.