Bithumb reviewing legal action over unrecovered assets
Civil liability for return likely to be recognized
Opinions divided over possibility of criminal punishment
A heated debate is spreading over who is responsible for returning the Bitcoin mistakenly overpaid by Bithumb, and whether criminal punishment is possible. Some users, after recognizing the payment error, withdrew the assets and are now refusing to return them, prompting the exchange to both persuade them and simultaneously review legal action. While the civil obligation to return the funds is highly likely to be recognized, legal experts remain divided over the possibility of criminal punishment.
According to Yonhap News on February 9, Bithumb is continuing to contact customers individually in order to retrieve the mistakenly paid Bitcoin. An exchange official said, "We are contacting, one-on-one, the customers who received Bitcoin and immediately disposed of it, persuading them to return it and coordinating the specific methods."
Mistyped 2,000 won as 2,000 BTC... Bithumb hit by unprecedented incident
On the evening of February 6 at 7 p.m., Bithumb made a mistake while paying out a total of 620,000 won in rewards to 249 winners of its "Random Box" event, by entering the unit as "Bitcoin" instead of "won." As a result, an unprecedented total of 620,000 Bitcoins were paid out. The exchange blocked account trading and withdrawals 35 minutes after the incident occurred, but by then some winners had already sold 1,788 Bitcoins on the market.
So far, most of the sold volume has been recovered in the form of won or other virtual assets, but as of 4:30 a.m. on February 7, about 125 Bitcoins (worth around 13 billion won at the current price) reportedly have not yet been recovered. This is said to include approximately 3 billion won in cash that winners withdrew to their personal bank accounts. There were also many cases in which users sold Bitcoin within the exchange and then bought altcoins and other assets again, making the asset-tracking and recovery process even more complicated.
Civil liability likely to be recognized if legal action is taken
Since the mistaken Bitcoin payments are similar to a type of "erroneous remittance," the general view inside and outside the industry is that Bithumb will likely be able to recover the funds if it proceeds with full-scale legal action. This is because the Random Box event clearly stated that the prize money would be between 2,000 won and 50,000 won per person, meaning that the winners who received a huge amount of Bitcoin could have recognized it as an "unjust enrichment."
If the company wins in a lawsuit for return of unjust enrichment or similar civil actions, the customers may not only have to pay back the proceeds from selling the Bitcoin, but could also be held liable for the company’s attorney fees.
Criminal punishment remains open to interpretation
Opinions are divided on whether customers who misappropriated the Bitcoin can be criminally punished. In a similar case, the Supreme Court in December 2021 acquitted a person, identified as A, who had been indicted for transferring 1.4 billion won worth of mistakenly remitted Bitcoin into another of his own accounts. The Supreme Court held that "virtual assets are not treated in law the same way as legal tender" and that "it does not necessarily follow that they must be protected in the same way as legal tender when applying the Criminal Act."
However, some observers point out that, given the recent expansion of the virtual asset market and moves to improve the regulatory framework, the possibility of a change in precedent cannot be ruled out. A legal industry source said, "Compared with the time of the past ruling, perceptions of the social and economic value of virtual assets have changed significantly," adding, "There is room for a different decision that recognizes their property value and the need for protection."
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