In a recent admission during a parliamentary inquiry, Bithumb's CEO, Lee Jae-won, revealed that the company had experienced two prior overpayment incidents that were similar to the recent case involving 620,000 ghost bitcoins. He noted that these past instances were resolved and that the company believed they were recovered. The revelation raises questions about the effectiveness of Bithumb's internal controls, as these overpayment issues have occurred multiple times without adequate safeguards in place to prevent them. Lee also mentioned that the employee responsible for the recent overpayment was a junior staff member, further underscoring concerns regarding the oversight of significant financial transactions.

Members of the National Assembly's Political Affairs Committee criticized Bithumb's management practices, highlighting a shift in focus towards marketing and public relations while neglecting customer safety. Democratic Party lawmaker Kim Hyun-jung pointed out that the cost of implementing a system to prevent input errors—which could have mitigated the overpayment incidents—was relatively low at around 100 million KRW, especially compared to the 199.3 billion KRW spent on advertising and promotions in the first three quarters of this year. This mismanagement is troubling, especially given the significant amount of money involved in the discrepancies.

The incident arose from a clerical error where a compensation amount of 2,000 KRW was mistakenly inputted as 2,000 bitcoins, leading to the excessive distribution of ghost coins, which are far beyond Bithumb's actual holdings of approximately 42,000 bitcoins. While it was clarified that the incorrectly issued bitcoins did not escape the Bithumb exchange, it was noted that external transfers could theoretically have occurred, stressing the importance of enhancing security measures. The exchange currently stores about 20% of customer assets in a hot wallet (internet-connected) and the remaining 80% in cold wallets (disconnected from the internet).