Bithumb, one of South Korea’s largest cryptocurrency platforms, experienced a major technical issue on September 2, 2025. The hardy lasted over 100 minutes and begined at 11:27 PM KST. The platform’s order book due to a transaction system issue, which halted all trading and delayed order executions.
During a period of high market volatility, this occurrence made it impossible for traders to place or modify orders, causing significant frustration among users. The engineers at promptly initiated system maintenance to resolve the issue, and services were restored within an hour and 40 minutes. The platform stated that the downtime was not caused by external factors, such as , but rather by a technical issue within the company.
Plans to Pay Affected Users
Bithumb announced on September 3, 2025, that it will fully reimburse users who lost money due to the trading ban. The platform has established a “sequential review” process to investigate client complaints and determine the appropriate compensation. Bithumb aims to complete this review and provide our compensation within one month.
The compensation scheme primarily benefits users who were affected by low-limit purchase orders that weren’t executed and low-limit trade orders that weren’t cancelled, potentially resulting in unintended transactions. This project adheres to the rules outlined by the ; however, the exact terms of remuneration remain unknown.
History of Outages and Ongoing Challenges
Bithumb has had before. Between 2018 and 2024, the platform experienced 41 outages, the most of any of South Korea’s top five crypto platforms. In the past, there have been significant issues, including a 90-minute server crash in November 2017 due to a surge in BTC transactions and 62 minutes of downtime during South Korea’s martial law period in December 2024.
These hardys keep happening, which has made investors undelighted. Many have expressed frustration with the platform’s unreliability during crucial trading times. During the September 2 downtime, Bithumb’s trading volume went down from $1 billion to $900 million. This illustrates the financial impact on the site and its users.
Bithumb is investigating the recent technological issue to determine how to prevent outages from recurring. As the platform prepares for a possible listing in 2026, it is also being examined for other hardys, such as misleading fees and hazardous lending practices.
The compensation plan assists some consumers, but the larger crypto community is still calling for stricter rules and standardised payment methods to protect investors in South Korea’s unstable crypto market.
