A South Korean court has upheld an appeal by Coinone, a cryptocurrency exchange, to retrieve approximately $85,371.89 in bitcoin from five customers who had exploited a technical issue in 2018 to make duplicate withdrawals. The Seoul Western District Court's ruling stated that the traders had benefited from 'unjust enrichment' because the initial withdrawal had already been processed on the blockchain before the exchange's system restored their account balances. The issue arose due to the exchange's software incorrectly identifying slow transaction confirmations on the Bitcoin network as failed transactions, resulting in the automatic replenishment of users' accounts.
The traders then proceeded to withdraw the same coins again. This incident occurred during a period of significant congestion on the Bitcoin network, characterized by high transaction volumes and fees.
A previous court ruling had attributed the issue to Coinone's servers and ordered partial compensation. However, the appeal court deemed the network delay an external factor, absolving the exchange of liability and ordering the users to return the withdrawn funds. Coinone has previously faced controversy, including a separate trial in 2023 where former employees admitted to receiving bribes to list specific tokens.