At 9:02 a.m., Min-jae checked his phone on the subway.
A notification blinked: Deposit received.
He frowned. He was supposed to get a coffee coupon’s worth of crypto—nothing more.
Instead, his balance showed 2,000 BTC.
For a moment, the train, the noise, the world disappeared.
Across the city, 694 other phones lit up the same way. Some users screamed. Some laughed. One fainted. A few sold instantly, fingers shaking, as the price on Bithumb plunged like a dropped glass.
Inside the exchange, alarms screamed louder than any market chart. Engineers ran. Buttons were slammed. Trading froze. Withdrawals died mid-click.
Thirty-five minutes later, the rain stopped.
Most of the bitcoin came back, quietly, obediently—as if embarrassed. A tiny fraction didn’t. Bithumb promised to pay it themselves. No hackers. No shadows. Just a human mistake with a god-sized number.
That night, Min-jae lay in bed, staring at the ceiling.
For half an hour, he had been richer than history.
In the morning, his balance was normal again.
But the story stayed—proof that sometimes, even money can fall from the sky…
and vanish just as fast.
