Accidentally sold users Bitcoin at 88% down due to a technical glitch

The Philippines-based PDAX network, Southeast Asia’s largest cryptocurrency trading platform, experienced a technological failure and accidentally sold users Bitcoin for $6,000, down 88% from the cryptocurrency’s price of $48,000 at the time.

According to Filipino news outlet BitPinas, the incident occurred after transaction volumes on the trading platform increased by 70x, resulting in a technical glitch that allowed orders to be processed at such a deep discount.

Nichel Gaba, the CEO of the cryptocurrency trading platform, defended the platform, claiming that only a “very limited number of orders” at such a discount had to be valid. Some, on the other hand, were successful, but the exchange’s transactions were invalid. Gaba said,

“It’s understandable that many users will be unhappy that they were able to purchase what they believed was an order for Bitcoin at extremely low prices. But since the underlying Bitcoins were never in the exchange’s hands, there was never even anything to buy or sell.”

PDAX, on the other hand, has been asking customers to “return their Bitcoin,” according to some customers. According to Facebook posts, the company requested consumers to give the funds back after “nearly 24 hours” and that they “might be forced to take legal action.”

As major Fortune 500 corporations showed support for digital currency, Bitcoin’s price hit a new record high of nearly $50,000.