An unfortunate blunder was caused by the cryptocurrency exchange platform Crypto.com, which mistakenly send $10.5 million AUD (about $7.2 million USD) to an Australian customer instead of delivering a regular $100 AUD (around $68 USD).
Note: read this complete Crypto.com review to learn the ins and outs of this crypto exchange.
The exchange allegedly didn’t even discover the blunder until seven months later. By that time, a portion of the money had already been lost, says an Australian news site 7News (via CoinTelegraph).
The transfer occurred when a worker mistakenly entered an account number in the payment amount section in May 2021. However, Crypto.com did not notice the error until an audit was carried out in December 2021. Thevamanogari Manivel, the consumer in question, reportedly transferred the money to a joint account and spent $1.3 million AUD (about $890,526 USD) on a lavish, five-bedroom mansion for her sister instead of reporting the inaccurate return to Crypto.com.
The Guardian report stated that in February, Crypto.com successfully froze Manivel’s account and has since filed a case in Victoria Supreme Court in an effort to recover its money. According to the court’s judgment, Manivel must sell the house and pay back the exchange’s money (plus interest). In October, the case will be brought back before the court. Crypto.com declined to comment on the matter.
Exchanges are apparently losing money lately for a variety of reasons, including fat-fingered errors that could be contributing to the crypto winter. Earlier this week, a developer unintentionally used the deadly “Solana program close” command to shut down the whole program that powered the decentralized exchange OptiFi, wiping out $661,000. In order to avoid future occurrences of this kind of issue, the exchange now demands the use of a warning message when employing the prompt.