Airdrop Error Costs Coinnest $5 Million, Plans to Restore Funds

South Korean crypto exchange Coinnest has made a major mishap as it accidentally transferred millions worth of digital assets to clients' accounts in an airdrop.

The incident took place last week when the exchange was trying to airdrop We Game Tokens (WGT) to its clients. Reportedly, this happened due to a computer error, and the exchange ended up sending Bitcoin , and other Cryptocurrencies worth around 6 billion Korean won ($5.3 million).

In addition, some customers also received Korean won from the exchange in their accounts due to some server error.

Restoring Losses

Coinnest resolved the server issue by January 19 and is now planning to roll back transactions to restore its assets. The exchange has already accounted for half of the won mistakingly transferred to its clients but is still waiting for the other half to return.

The exchange, however, did not announce any plan to compensate traders who suffered losses due to the server issue.

However, a number of customers immediately hit the market to sell the accidentally gained Bitcoins which resulted in a flash crash on the exchange taking Bitcoin’s price to as low as $50.

The exchange is also asking its clients to return funds they received by mistake.

A Controversial Exchange

Coinnest had been in the focus of controversies many times. Last year, South Korean authorities detained the exchange's co-founder and CEO Kim Yik-hwan on charges of embezzlement.

Recently, a South Korean court has sentenced two executives including CEO of the crypto exchange Komid to jail for faking trading volume and misleading clients.