Bithumb, one of the largest domestic crypto exchanges, has been ordered to pay its victims in the shape of compensation. Compensation was ordered by the South Korean Court in connection with the incident that happened back in 2018 regarding accidental cash withdrawal. In the incident, Bitcoins of Bithumb’s victims were transferred to an unknown wallet.
The case hearing was held in South Korea on the 15thof December. The case was decided by the 15th Division of the Civil Agreement of the Seoul Central District Court. The complaint was brought to them by one of the six victims of Bithumb. The victims, back in November 2018, purported that the exchange provided them with misinformation regarding the withdrawal of cash.
The victims wanted to transfer their cryptocurrency from Bithumb wallet to their desired third person by way of exchange. However, due to a series of discrepancies in the system, Bitcoins were transferred to some other unknown third-party rather than original owners.
In the Seoul Court, as per the view of Judge MinSeong-Cheol, due to a technical fault in the system of Bithumb, the cash withdrawal ended in some other person’s account. The court noticed that the funds were sent to unidentified wallets which remain unknown still to date. The system in fact failed to comply with the commands of Bithumb’s customers and landed in someone else’s accounts.
The complainants alleged in the complaint that irreparable loss and injury was caused upon them because the defendant didn’t fulfill the mandatory pre-requisites of the lease contract. For instance, verifying details of the address regarding withdrawal as required by the plaintiffs was not considered. Furthermore, the system failed to verify the address of the defendants to whom the information was given.
Judge Min was of the view that the victims should be compensated as per the rate of the Bitcoin back in 2018 when the incident happened. The rate of bitcoin at that time was $4,550-$4,650.
The victims were of the view that they should be compensated a sum of at least $1 million, and not with bitcoin rate at the time of the incident. In fact, they had asked categorically for being compensated on the prevailing rates of Bitcoin.
The victims of the Bithumb incident also told that the customer service of the exchange did not accept their mistake. Instead Bithumbblamed the victims for wrong cash withdrawal by an unknown owner.
This case came into the limelight when a South Korean IT company made it viral. The video was found to be defective which was posted by one of the victims of the Bithumb exchange. There wasn’t any mistake found on the part of the customers in the video.
The press has said that Bithumb is still silent and has not shared any point of view on the Seoul Court decision.
