Bug in Brazilian Crypto Exchange Accidentally Sends User $35 million

By Debarun Gupta

Kaique Nunes was pleasantly surprised when he realized that he had been sent $35 million or around 137 million Reales following a withdrawal that he made worth about $128. Turn out, Brazilian Bitcoin exchange Bitcambio had mistakenly transferred him the money due to a bug in their system. However, the sudden millionaire was not very keen to give up his newfound wealth so quickly at first when the company asked the money back.

The incident happened in early November of 2018. According to Nunes’ statement, “Early last month, I issued some normal draft orders, and after a while, Bitcambio called. They wanted to let me know that they had erroneously issued all this value and they needed me to recognize a document in a notary’s office.” He had apparently thought that “it was a coup.”

The amount of transfer meant that there was a considerable risk of the caller being a scammer, or merely a Bitcambio employee looking for some extra money, seeking to relieve Nunes of his signature. However, the huge amount had also drawn the attention of the exchange platform, and they contacted him quickly to explain the importance of the reversal procedure.

To reverse the transaction, Nunes had to go to the registry office and append his signature to a document. The exchange platform had initiated the reversal process, but due to the significant amount involved, he had to sign an approval.

To clarify and confirm if this was indeed an error on the platform’s part, Kaique wrote to Bitcambio vendor Rodrigo Souza. He tracked the vendor down and contacted him through his social media page. The vendor confirmed that it was indeed a mistake on the platform’s part and that the company was looking into ways to compensate Nunes for his active role in rectifying the error.

Rodrigo shed light on the whole situation through a post on his social media page:

“The mistake really happened. Mr. Nunes will be reimbursed for all the costs he incurred going to the notary’s office to solve all this mess. The transaction has already been reversed.”

He added that Bitcambio’s activities were legal and that the company wasn’t ashamed of accepting its mistakes and rectifying them.

As far as Nunes was concerned, he said that he merely wanted to help with the reversal of the transfer as soon as possible to avoid any confrontations with the national authorities.

 

Debarun Gupta

Debarun is currently pursuing a Bachelor’s Degree in Economics and writing when he’s not watching cat videos on YouTube.

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