Bithumb Mistakenly Airdrops 620,000 "Phantom Balance" Bitcoins Sparking Community Debate, Actual Platform Reserve May Only Be 42,000 Coins

**February 7: Bithumb, South Korea’s second-largest crypto exchange, mistakenly airdropped 620,000 Bitcoins (BTC) to 695 customers yesterday due to an employee error—equivalent to 2.95% of Bitcoin’s total circulating supply. While the platform has since recovered nearly all the mistakenly sent funds (only 0.3% remains unretrieved), the massive unintended airdrop has spurred debate in the crypto community about “ghost balances” on centralized exchanges (CEXs).** **Bithumb has not directly disclosed detailed BTC reserve holdings or complete Proof of Reserve (PoR) on-chain evidence. However, a prior report from South Korean outlet MK.co.kr stated that as of Q3 2023, Bithumb held just 42,619 BTC in storage. Even if reserves have grown since then, they are still far short of the 620,000 BTC mistakenly credited.** **This incident is an internal ledger error, not a real on-chain airdrop from the exchange’s hot wallet. The extra BTC in users’ accounts constitutes a “ghost balance”—meaning the platform does not actually hold enough BTC to cover withdrawals of those funds. When some users tried to sell the mistakenly credited BTC, prices dipped temporarily, but there were no large-scale on-chain transfers.** **Notably, nearly all mainstream CEXs do not record every user transaction on-chain in real time. Instead, they rely on internal databases and ledgers to manage balances—so the “balances” users see are internal records, not real-time on-chain holdings. Only withdrawals trigger actual on-chain data changes. Most CEXs use risk controls, audits, and automated checks to prevent extreme errors.** **Bithumb’s case exposed an internal control flaw: employees could directly modify large reward units without proper safeguards. South Korean regulators have launched an investigation into the incident.**