To Prevent Erroneous Bitcoin Payouts, All Five Major Exchanges Cut Balance Reconciliation to Within Five Minutes [Crypto Briefing]

[Financial News] Following Bithumb's erroneous Bitcoin payout incident in February, all five major domestic KRW-market virtual asset exchanges have shortened their ledger reconciliation intervals to within five minutes. At the time of the incident, three of the five exchanges conducted reconciliation only once a day. However, their systems were strengthened after the financial authorities ordered them to establish continuous balance reconciliation systems.
According to data that the office of Kang Joon-hyun of the Democratic Party of Korea obtained from the Financial Supervisory Service on the 2nd, the five major KRW-market exchanges—Upbit, Bithumb, Coinone, Digital X (formerly Korbit), and GOPAX—currently compare their actual virtual asset holdings with the quantities recorded in their internal ledgers at intervals of within five minutes.
Consistency verification is the process of checking whether the amount of virtual assets an exchange actually holds matches the amount recorded in its internal ledger (database). If the figures do not match, there may be grounds to believe that an abnormal transaction has occurred.
Among the exchanges, Bithumb, where the erroneous Bitcoin payout incident occurred, introduced the shortest interval—a real-time reconciliation system operating every two minutes—in May. It also decided to disclose the storage status of its daily reconciliation results on its website every day and shorten the inspection cycle for external accounting firms from quarterly to monthly.
The Financial Supervisory Service said, "In July, following the erroneous payout incident, we conducted a follow-up on-site inspection of Bithumb to assess whether its consistency verification system had been improved," adding, "Bithumb established a continuous balance reconciliation system to continuously detect balance discrepancies and improved its balance consistency maintenance system by automating and refining its daily reconciliation procedures."
The other exchanges have also established automated reconciliation systems operating within five minutes. Coinone introduced its five-minute automated reconciliation system on June 1, Digital X on March 9, and GOPAX on August 26. Upbit has operated a reconciliation system with five-minute intervals since November 2022.
Previously, there were significant differences among the exchanges. An inspection conducted by the financial authorities in April found that Upbit conducted reconciliation every five minutes and Digital X every 10 minutes, while the other three exchanges checked consistency only once every 24 hours.
The financial authorities pointed out that, in such cases, it would be difficult to respond in a timely manner even if a discrepancy arose between the ledger and actual holdings due to an erroneous payout or other issue. They therefore mandated the establishment of continuous balance reconciliation systems with reconciliation intervals of within five minutes. The decision took into account the average time required for each procedure, the level of strain on computer systems, and market cases.
Meanwhile, the Financial Supervisory Service is proceeding with sanctions against Bithumb in connection with the erroneous payout incident. The FSS has received Bithumb's explanation regarding the inspection opinion letter recently sent to the exchange and is preparing a final sanctions proposal.
[email protected] Lim Sang-hyeok Reporter