Court: "Bithumb to Compensate 132 Victims of System Failure with a Total of 250 Million KRW"

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Hyung-min] South Korean cryptocurrency exchange Bithumb has been ordered in an appellate court ruling to compensate some investors who suffered losses due to a system failure in 2017, with payments of up to 10 million KRW per person.

According to the legal community on the 26th, the Seoul High Court Civil Division 16 (Presiding Judges Cha Moon-ho, Lee Yang-hee, Kim Kyung-ae) overturned the first trial ruling, which dismissed the damages claim filed by 190 investors against Bithumb's operator, and partially ruled in favor of the plaintiffs.

The court ordered compensation totaling 251,388,000 KRW to 132 of the plaintiffs. The minimum compensation amount was 8,000 KRW, and the maximum was 10 million KRW.

The court stated, "The plaintiffs experienced anxiety and frustration because they were unable to place sell orders at their desired prices due to the system failure, despite the cryptocurrency market rapidly declining," adding, "It is necessary to protect them from the mental shock caused by this."

In particular, the court found that "the system failure occurred due to DB server overload, which prevented the plaintiffs from accessing the site or placing sell orders, thereby hindering their use of the service," and judged that "the defendant breached its contractual obligations under the service usage agreement."

On November 12, 2017, Bithumb announced a system failure to its members after the hourly order volume surged from the usual around 100,000 to over 200,000, causing the transaction failure rate to exceed 50%. After server inspections, memory resets, and traffic control measures, trading resumed approximately 1 hour and 30 minutes later.

The investors filed a lawsuit claiming, "During the trading suspension, the prices of cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin Cash (BCH) and Ethereum Classic (ETC) plummeted, causing losses equivalent to the price difference." The first trial ruled against the plaintiffs, but the appellate court overturned that decision.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.