By
Bena Ilyas
May 13th, 2024
A BlockFi spokesperson noted that fewer than 100 clients have erroneously been credited Bitcoin, and efforts to retrieve and prevent such errors in the future are ongoing.
Leading Bitcoin and crypto lender BlockFi has wrongly deposited a great deal of Bitcoin to some of its users during the March Promotional giveaway. The crypto firm is already making several attempts at reversing these huge deposits from beneficiaries’ accounts while also threatening some of these users with lawsuits, per a Forbes report. The March Promotional giveaway, which ran from March 18 to 31, rewarded clients with Bitcoin, as per their March Trading Volume in USD. According to the terms of the BlockFi rewards campaign, traders who carried out transactions to a certain threshold were rewarded with a certain amount at the end of the promo. The credit occurred on May 31.
Following the erroneous deposit, BlockFi, on May 14, had tweeted to notify the public of the incident and of the possible inaccuracy in their bonus balance. However, users who were oblivious of this mistake had withdrawn the deposited bonuses leading to the platform suspending transactions like withdrawing and trading.
A BlockFi spokesperson noted that fewer than 100 clients have erroneously been credited Bitcoin, and efforts to retrieve and prevent such errors in the future are ongoing. He stated that suspended withdrawal and trading have resumed. In the statement, “Certain withdrawals were delayed, and trading paused while BlockFi contacted clients to rectify the issue,” said the spokesperson. “At this time, withdrawals and trading on the platform have resumed. The situation did not affect any of BlockFi’s ongoing operations, and measures have been taken to ensure that an error like this will not be possible in the future. Client funds are not impacted and are safeguarded.”
On the part of users, one confirmed the receipt of the mistake BTC deposit. According to him, he thought it was “a reward for referring their friends – so they sent it to their cold storage wallet.” However, upon a closer look at the transaction, “they realized it was an error, so they requested a cancellation of the withdrawal. The cancelation request was confirmed via email and their account shows the BTC transaction was reversed, with a note specifying they had reversed the bonus transaction.”
Also, other beneficiaries on Reddit have posted transaction screenshots showing the amount received, reversed, and the amount remained in their account. A user went ahead to post images of BlockFi and captioned it “generous” giveaway, having received about 700BTC. Another user claimed that he had reversed the BTC, yet BlockFi denied him in withdrawal of his fund.
Per the Forbes report, BlockFi is trying to incentivize users to reverse these rewards with “a pay-out of $500 should they return them by a set time.”