- A cryptocurrency mistake made a married couple millionaires, but only briefly
- A gas payment error of $23.7 million
- An accidental giveaway of COMP tokens worth $90 million
- A 700 BTC promotional event
- Sometimes “fat fingers” hide fraud
- Clumsy mistakes will always exist
A fat-finger error is a mistake where a user accidentally inputs incorrect information when sending, selling, or receiving cryptocurrency, usually due to a typo. This can lead to significant losses or miscalculations.
Common errors include adding an extra zero (or two) or accidentally sending all funds to the wrong wallet.
“Fat fingers” aren’t limited to cryptocurrency. In 2018, Samsung Securities made a fat-finger error when, instead of paying employees 1,000 Korean won ($0.72) per share as dividends, it mistakenly issued them 1,000 Samsung Securities shares.
Due to the error, 2.83 billion shares were distributed, amounting to about 112.6 trillion won, or $150 billion. Most of these shares were returned, but some employees attempted to sell theirs, causing the price of Samsung Securities to drop. The incident sparked a dispute among investors, regulators, and employees.
However, one key difference with cryptocurrency is that transactions are instant, irreversible, and anonymous, leaving participants with limited options to recover mistakenly transferred funds. Additionally, in public blockchains, errors are visible to everyone.
Below are a few instructive examples that will make anyone think twice. Be careful when making a transaction!
A Cryptocurrency Mistake Made a Married Couple Millionaires, But Only Briefly
In May 2021, Crypto.com mistakenly sent 10.47 million AUD ($6.86 million) to the Australian couple Thevamanogari Manivel and Jatinder Singh instead of a 100 AUD refund. The error occurred when an employee reportedly entered an incorrect account number in the payments section of an Excel sheet.
Fat-finger error – real estate worth 1.35 million AUD (about $900,000)Source: Nine News
When the exchange discovered the error during an internal audit in December 2021, Singh had already bought several houses and gifted a friend 1 million AUD (about $660,000), claiming he thought he had won an “online raffle.” However, Singh’s statement appeared to be a clear attempt at justification, as Crypto.com’s compliance officer, Michi Chan Fores, firmly denied the existence of any such promotion.
The millionaire couple’s honeymoon ended after they both pled guilty to theft. Singh was sentenced to three years in prison, while Manivel received an 18-month community service sentence without imprisonment.
District Court Judge Martine Marich explained her decision to sentence Singh to prison, stating that although he had pled guilty, he continued to blame Crypto.com and Commonwealth Bank for mistakenly sending the funds. Marich also acknowledged Singh’s cognitive impairments, including a “very low” IQ, which prevented him from fully understanding the legal consequences of his actions.
A Gas Payment Error of $23.7 Million
In September 2021, a small decentralized finance (DeFi) trading platform called DeversiFi, which has since been renamed Rhino.fi, accidentally paid a fee of $23.7 million for one of its transfers.
The user intended to pay a nominal gas fee, but due to a technical error in the software, the fee was excessively high. According to the investigation, issues with the EthereumJS library coincided with changes in gas fees following the EIP-1559 update, resulting in extremely high transaction fees.
However, DeversiFi was fortunate, as the miner who received the reward returned the entire amount.
The miner who received the reward returned the entire amount
Thanks to Ethereum blockchain’s inherent transparency, the DeversiFi team was able to trace the miner of block 13307440, where the erroneous transfer occurred. The miner regularly transferred ETH to Binance, which enabled the team to reach out through the cryptocurrency exchange.
An hour later, the miner returned the entire amount, minus 50 ETH (around $190,000 at the time), which DeversiFi gladly offered as a reward.
An Accidental Giveaway of COMP Tokens Worth $90 Million
In October 2021, a bug in an update to the widely used Compound Finance DeFi protocol led to a very generous distribution of tokens to users. The issue arose from a small code error that caused incorrect fund allocation, allowing users to receive COMP tokens worth $90 million.
Compound Finance is a protocol that enables users to lend their crypto assets in exchange for interest. However, the protocol malfunctioned and sent millions of dollars’ worth of COMP tokens to some lucky users.
Despite public requests from the protocol’s founder, Robert Leshner, and his threat to report those who refused to return the tokens to the U.S. tax authorities, some users chose to sell their holdings rather than return the tokens.
Leshner explained how helpless the company was, as there were no administrative or community tools to stop the distribution of COMP.
A 700 BTC Promotional Event
In May 2021, BlockFi, a digital asset lending company, mistakenly launched one of the most generous promotions in the crypto industry. BlockFi initiated a promotion involving the stablecoin Gemini Dollar (GUSD), where a bonus was to be paid to selected clients. This promotion would give users additional benefits for maintaining a certain dollar balance on their BlockFi interest accounts.
However, due to a fat-finger error, BlockFi accidentally sent Bitcoin instead of GUSD to some users, with some recipients receiving up to 700 BTC.
Another fat-finger error
Although most of the erroneous cryptocurrency transactions were reversed, about 100 clients managed to sell the mistakenly received Bitcoin. The company accused users who did not cooperate and refused to return the Bitcoin of misconduct and threatened legal action.
One user wrote: “BlockFi messed up. […] Two days after their mistake, I withdrew funds […] completely unrelated to their statement. Now they’re emailing me, accusing me of withdrawing funds that don’t belong to me and saying it’s fraud and a crime, and that they’ll pursue me if I don’t return the money,” adding, “Screw you, it’s my money.”
The BlockFi error caused significant reputational damage that was difficult to repair. The company declared bankruptcy in November 2022.
Sometimes “Fat-finger Errors” Hide Fraud
Usually, “fat finger errors” are associated with errors, but sometimes these “accidents” happen intentionally as an elaborate form of money laundering. For example, a “mistaken” transfer might include an excessively high fee, as occurred on August 12, when an unknown user spent $90,000 on a transaction fee for a simple $2,200 Ethereum transfer.
This method requires the user to collaborate with the validator of the specific transaction to ensure that the fee payment is routed to the correct block.
Clumsy Mistakes Will Always Exist
While scandals involving millionaire blunders often make headlines, small incidents frequently go unnoticed.
NFT collector PrincePablos thought he had bought an NFT for 0.021 BTC, around $1,287. However, he was in for a surprise when he realized the NFT was listed for 0.21 BTC (around $12,877). The seller refunded his money, but PrincePablos became famous for his fat fingers.
