Bithumb Uncovers Staggering $200M+ in Dormant Crypto Across 2.6 Million Forgotten Accounts
South Korea's crypto giant just cracked open a digital vault no one knew existed.
The Sleeping Giant Awakens
In a routine audit that turned into a treasure hunt, one of Asia's leading exchanges stumbled upon a fortune in forgotten assets. We're talking about a sum north of two hundred million dollars—capital that's been sitting idle, gathering digital dust in millions of accounts whose owners seemingly vanished.
Where Did All the Money Go?
The scale is almost incomprehensible. Over two and a half million individual accounts, each holding a sliver of what was once someone's investment dream, now form a massive pool of inactive wealth. It's the financial equivalent of finding a fleet of abandoned Lamborghinis in a global parking garage—except these assets don't depreciate with time; they just wait.
The Ghosts of Bull Markets Past
This discovery reads like an archaeological dig through crypto's recent history. Each dormant account tells a silent story—a trader who got spooked, an investor who forgot a password, a speculator who walked away and never looked back. Together, they've accidentally created one of the largest unintentional crypto savings plans on the planet. A stark reminder that in the frenzy of chasing the next ATH, people sometimes forget what they already caught.
Implications for the Ecosystem
That much dormant liquidity represents pure potential energy for the market. Should even a fraction of those assets stir, the ripple effects could be significant. It also raises uncomfortable questions about user engagement, asset security protocols, and the eerie quiet of capital that's checked out without saying goodbye. After all, what does it say about an asset class when millions of people can forget they own a piece of it? Perhaps the ultimate HODL strategy is, ironically, complete amnesia.
This isn't just lost and found—it's a billion-dollar lesson in attention spans, wrapped in the cynical truth that sometimes the best investment strategy is literally forgetting you invested. The traditional finance crowd would have a field day with that one.
Bithumb Finds $2.84M Dormant Account Idle for Nearly 12 Years
According to the exchange, the single largest dormant balance was worth around $2.84 million.
The longest period of inactivity stretched to 4,380 days, nearly 12 years, pointing to early market participants who entered during crypto’s formative years and never returned.
The findings offer a glimpse into the industry’s early retail-driven phase, when users often bought small amounts of digital assets with little expectation of long-term value.
Many of those accounts were abandoned as markets cooled, platforms evolved, or personal interest faded.
In some cases, users may have assumed their holdings were insignificant, unaware that years of price appreciation had turned them into sizable sums.
Bithumb said some dormant holdings recorded gains exceeding 61,000%, or roughly 610 times their original value.
Tracing further reveals this wallet received ~93,947 BTC in 2017–2018, mainly from CEXs and CoinJoin, including HTX, Gemini, Bixin, Bitfinex, Bithumb, and QuadrigaCX.
The wallet remained dormant for 3 years until 2020.
With mixed sources like these and long dormancy, the funds… pic.twitter.com/XP5mMwjkV3
These outsized returns reflect assets acquired in the earliest stages of crypto adoption, before broader public awareness and institutional involvement.
For comparison, Bitcoin traded at around $767 at the start of 2014. At recent prices near $87,700, that represents a gain of about 11,300%, or roughly 114 times.
Several of the forgotten assets held on Bithumb therefore outperformed bitcoin over a similar timeframe, underscoring how early exposure combined with long-term inactivity can yield extreme results.
The exchange has run similar recovery efforts before. During its 11th anniversary campaign last year, Bithumb said roughly 36,000 users reclaimed dormant assets worth about $50 million.
The current campaign is larger in scale, reflecting both the platform’s age and the growth of the crypto market over time.
Bithumb said it plans to notify eligible customers directly and assist with account recovery, positioning the initiative as part of its customer protection efforts.
Beyond individual users, the disclosure carries broader implications for the market. Dormant balances represent latent supply that could re-enter circulation during future market cycles.
Upbit Moves 99% of Customer Assets to Cold Storage After $30M Hack
As reported, Upbit is shifting nearly all customer assets into cold storage after hackers stole 44.5 billion won (about $30 million) from its solana hot wallet, marking one of the strongest security responses yet by a major exchange.
Operator Dunamu said the platform will raise its cold wallet ratio to 99% and reduce hot wallet exposure to effectively zero, far above South Korea’s legal requirement that 80% of user funds be stored offline.
The exchange already held 98.33% of assets in cold storage at the end of October, the highest among domestic platforms, but accelerated its overhaul following the breach.
Meanwhile, South Korean authorities have launched an investigation, and local reports have cited early intelligence assessments that allegedly connect the intrusion to North Korea’s Lazarus Group.
