Bithumb, which sparked controversy with a mistaken payout of Bitcoin worth up to 60 trillion won, was found to have had two additional cases of erroneous payouts of virtual assets in the past. The financial authorities faced criticism for failing to detect Bithumb’s inadequate internal controls despite multiple inspections.

Appearing at the National Assembly’s Political Affairs Committee for an emergency inquiry related to Bithumb on the 11th, Bithumb CEO Lee Jae-won said, “Our internal review found there had been two cases of erroneous payouts in the past, which were recovered.”

He only noted, “When we communicated with the audit office, there were about two very small cases.”

When it was pointed out that this incident was carried out with approval only from an assistant manager-level employee, Lee stated, “We see this as a human error that occurred as we mixed two systems during the process of upgrading the operations system that supports the exchange.” He then bowed his head, saying, “We are acutely aware of our insufficient internal controls.”

He also said, “For now, we consider as eligible for relief the panic sell that occurred when 1,788 Bitcoins were sold and the resulting forced liquidations affecting around 30 people, but we will complete broader restitution through various complaints and petitions.” He continued, “We promise to fully meet requirements for regulation, supervision, and internal controls comparable to those for financial service providers.”

At the inquiry, the question of responsibility for the financial authorities’ failure to detect internal control deficiencies was also raised.

According to materials titled ‘Bithumb inspection and examination records, 2021~2025’ that Rep. Kang Min-guk of the People Power Party received that day from the Financial Services Commission and the Financial Supervisory Service, the Financial Services Commission looked into Bithumb three timesonce in 2022 and twice in 2025. The Financial Supervisory Service also conducted three reviews and examinations during the period, including two ad hoc examinations and one review. Yet they failed to identify the problems with the deficient IT system, critics noted.

Rep. Han Chang-min of the Social Democratic Party pointed out, “I am skeptical that the financial authorities have only engaged in perfunctory checks and recommendations until now.”

Kwon Dae-young, Vice Chairman of the Financial Services Commission, said, “I understand that we did conduct checks on (the erroneous payouts), but this part did not function effectively,” and bowed his head, adding, “We acknowledge that supervision and systems commensurate with the sector’s external growth were lacking.”

He continued, “Our review finds that some grounds for sanctions (against Bithumb) exist in the User Protection Act,” emphasizing, “We believe internal control standards (for exchanges) should not merely be comparable to those for financial companies but the same.”

Lee Chan-jin, Governor of the Financial Supervisory Service, stated, “Before the User Protection Act took effect, we reviewed 15 coin exchanges and had already pointed out that internal control frameworks and system development were inadequate.” He said eight examiners have been assigned to the current Bithumb examination and added, “We will strive to obtain the examination results within this week.”

He also said, “Upbit checks (holdings and book balances) at five-minute intervals, but five minutes is in fact not shortit is very long,” adding, “Systemic safety can be secured only if there is an integrated system in which actual holdings and ledger balances match in real time, and it would be good if this could be addressed in the second-stage legislation.”

The authorities announced that, through an emergency response team comprising the Financial Supervisory Service, the Financial Services Commission, the FIU (Korea Financial Intelligence Unit), and DAXA, they have launched on-site inspections of four exchanges including Upbit, in addition to Bithumb.