Bithumb Users Hit by 100-Minute Outage Will Get Full Compensation After Trading Freeze

Bithumb Pledges Full Compensation After Nearly Two-Hour Platform Outage

A sudden technical fault left South Korea’s Bithumb crypto exchange offline for around 100 minutes on 2 September, disrupting trading for thousands of users.

The platform went down at 11:27 PM KST, according to Seoul Kyungjae, and engineers quickly traced the problem to a system error rather than any external hacking attempt.

How The Outage Affected Traders And Operations

During the outage, Bithumb’s order book was frozen, and order executions were delayed, leaving users unable to trade or access their accounts.

The exchange confirmed that engineers “immediately began system maintenance” after detecting the issue, but services remained unavailable for roughly one hour and 40 minutes.

Bithumb later announced that it would “fully compensate users for losses incurred due to the trading suspension” and plans to review complaints sequentially, aiming to complete the process within “approximately one month.”

Source: Bithumb

An official from the exchange explained that the disruption was caused by a transaction system error and reassured users:

“The outage was not caused by external factors like hacking. We are analysing the details of this technical error to ensure this does not happen again.”

Is South Korea’s Crypto Infrastructure Ready For High Traffic?

This incident follows earlier major outages at Bithumb and other local exchanges during periods of market stress.

In December 2024, when former President Yoon Suk-yeol attempted to declare martial law, crypto platforms faced massive traffic spikes, leading to system failures.

Seoul Kyungjae highlighted that repeated outages are fueling investor frustration, noting that even short interruptions in 24-hour markets can result in significant losses.

Data from the offices of People Power Party lawmaker Lee Heon-seung shows that between 2018 and 2024, South Korea’s five main fiat-trading exchanges reported 89 outages.

Bithumb experienced 41, Upbit 28, GOPAX 11, Coinone eight, and Korbit one.

Industry officials have emphasised the absence of uniform legal compensation standards, with “deadlines for reporting damages and compensation methods currently varying greatly from exchange to exchange.”

A South Korean crypto industry source said:

“The crypto market is highly volatile and operates 24 hours a day. As such, even a few minutes of trading interruption can result in investors making losses. We need to create a streamlined compensation system for damages caused by exchanges’ computer system failures.”

How Users Can Claim Compensation

Bithumb has opened a window for affected users to submit claims from 3 September to 2 October.

Users are advised to follow official instructions via the exchange’s website or mobile app and provide detailed records of their losses, including transaction IDs, timestamps, and affected amounts.

Bithumb’s Long-Term Plans And Market Position

The outage comes as Bithumb prepares for a planned NASDAQ listing in 2026 and recently spun off a new company to separate its core exchange operations from its business expansion efforts.

The move to compensate users promptly may bolster confidence in its operational reliability ahead of this international listing.