South Korea's FSS to Probe "Ghost Bitcoin" After Bithumb Mis-Transfer Raises Risk to CEX Licences

Bithumb's erroneous bitcoin transfers prompted Financial Supervisory Service Governor Lee Chan-jin to describe the case as a "disaster" on Feb. 9 and call for a large-scale sector-wide review of so-called "book transactions" where virtual assets are traded without being actually held, newspim reports. Speaking at the FSS headquarters in Seoul during a briefing on the 2026 main business plan, Lee said on-site inspections had begun after the incident report and that a full investigation would follow if legal violations are suspected, adding that once the proposed Digital Asset Basic Act is passed, sanctions could extend to licensing measures that may threaten virtual asset exchange operations. Lee stressed the core problem is Bithumb executing trades in "virtual" coins it did not own and noted other exchanges are also being reviewed, as this undermines trust in virtual asset trading platforms. Data cited show Bithumb as of last September held only 175 BTC for itself and 42,619 BTC on behalf of customers, totaling 42,794 BTC, while the erroneous transfers reached about 620,000 BTC, more than 14 times that balance and implying roughly 580,000 "ghost" bitcoins were issued through an internal ledger-based book trading structure that itself is legal but, in this case, lacked safeguards against paying out non-existent assets.