Bithumb has prevailed in the first two of four lawsuits it filed against customers who sold Bitcoin that the exchange had mistakenly credited to their accounts, as the company seeks to recover the proceeds of those sales.

According to Chosun Biz, the Seoul Central District Court ruled in the exchange's favor on both Wednesday and Thursday. The two decisions are the first outcomes among four cases brought against users who received Bitcoin in error and then sold part of it.

The case decided on Thursday involved a claim of 194 million won, roughly $140,000. The Wednesday ruling covered a smaller claim of 5 million won, about $3,600. Two further cases remain unresolved, with claims estimated at 14.8 million won ($10,700) and 500 million won ($362,000). The defendants in those two pending cases were reportedly served by public announcement after court papers could not be delivered through normal channels.

Origins in a February Reward Error

The lawsuits stem from a large accounting error during a Bithumb promotional event on February 6, 2026. The exchange intended to distribute rewards totaling 620,000 won to 249 users, but an employee mistakenly selected Bitcoin instead of the Korean won as the monetary unit, resulting in 620,000 BTC being credited to customer accounts.

Bithumb later disclosed that it had recovered 618,212 BTC, or 99.7% of the Bitcoin mistakenly transferred. Before the exchange froze the affected accounts, however, some individuals had sold 1,788 BTC, leaving the exchange to pursue repayment through court rather than through voluntary return. Rather than asking those clients to pay back the wrongly received Bitcoin, Bithumb opted to file four unjust enrichment lawsuits in March.

Regulatory and Legal Pressure Continues

The incident has also drawn the attention of South Korea's Financial Supervisory Service (FSS), which examined how Bithumb was able to allocate Bitcoin to its users that the exchange did not own. In early August, the FSS sent the company a statement of inspection, initiating a process that could lead to sanctions against the exchange. No decision on penalties has been made yet.

The exchange faces additional legal problems. In June, police raided its offices in a separate investigation related to hiring preferences involving legislator Kim Byung-ki. Bithumb is also contesting a six-month suspension of its business imposed for violations of anti-money laundering law, a decision the Seoul court suspended in April.

The court's most recent decisions give the exchange a crucial breakthrough in its effort to recover funds connected to the February Bitcoin crediting problem, while the remaining cases will show how far the court is willing to extend restitution claims where assets were quickly sold after an operational error.