Brazilian Crypto Exchange Sends $35 Million To $127 USD Withdrawal By Mistake

Bitcambio, a crypto exchange based in Brazil, has made one the silliest and biggest mistakes ever made in the crypto industry. While trying to pay for a withdrawal of $500 BRL (about $127 USD at the time of this report), it actually sent $137 million BRL (roughly $35 million USD) for the customer.

A local news outlet that reported on the story, Portal do Bitcoin, has affirmed that the user, Kaique Nunes, was contacted soon after the withdrawal, which was a normal order. He did not even know that it happened when Bitcambio started calling him all the time.

At the time, the exchange asked him to recognize a document in a notary’s office affirming that it was a mistake. He initially thought it was a scam or something like this and that some hacker stole his information and was using it to get his signature.

First believing it was a scam, he ignored the calls for some time. The exchange affirmed that the transaction was canceled but that they would need the signature of a document they sent by email to keep moving forward about the canceled transaction.

Luckily for the exchange, Nunes went to social media seeking for answers. He used a popular Facebook group focused on Brazilian crypto discussions and told his story. Rodrigo Souza, one of the administrators in the group, was also one of the suppliers for Bitcambio, so he recognized the error and affirmed that it was a legitimate case.

Nunes was promised that he would get the money from going to the notary’s office back and that his time would be rewarded. The exchange affirmed that the mistake happened due to a bug in the time the withdrawal was being made and that they legally needed the signed document in order to close the case. At the moment of this report, both sides were working to solve the case.

Unfortunately, most of the exchanges in Brazil are struggling due to the bear market. Brazil does not have a very strong tradition in Bitcoin investments, so the user base of the services was already somewhat low even before the bear market started and now things are worse.

The largest exchange in the Brazilian market, Mercado Bitcoin, has fired at least 20 people during “restructuring” which was necessary because of the crisis. Huobi Brasil, launched this year in the country, also had to fire 6 of its 10 employees. The government is also not very supportive of Bitcoin and its investors, so the future is not too good for cryptos in the country.

205 +