PDAX Suffers Tech Glitch That Sells BTC At $6K And Wants The BTC Back

One of the biggest crypto exchanges in Southeast Asia, the Philippine Digital Assets Exchange (PDAX), has had a bit of an oopsie. According to the exchange itself, a technical glitch had caused Bitcoin to be valued at just $6,000 apiece on the 16th of February, 2021.

Big Problems For PDAX

This 88% drop in price had caused quite a stir. An unknown number of customers had managed to buy up literal thousands of Bitcoin tokens from the exchange at this spectacular discount. This, in turn, has spawned a new generation of local currency billionaires within the nation, but that wouldn’t last.

The exchange itself boasts a maximum withdrawal rate of 1 Bitcoin per 24 hours, and a number of customers pulled out that Bitcoin before PDAX understood what was happening. Now, the exchange is issuing out demands for those that managed to withdraw their Bitcoin, threatening legal action against them if they don’t give them back their BTC.

Putting Out Fires And Threatening For Lawsuits

The tech glitch has caused an adverse effect on the exchange itself, as those at PDAX are trying hard to plug the leaks of this “glitch”. For a straight 36 hours, the exchange was closed as a whole. Even now, as it tries to put out the flames, users are reporting that they’re still locked out of trading with their accounts.

One brave soul managed to pull the Bitcoin out of the exchange wallet before it pulled the plug, and had promptly received SMSs and emails threatening legal action if he didn’t return the legally bought Bitcoin. The user turned to Reddit to try and gain advice, but the Internet just gave him every response under the sun.

PR Management At Its Finest

On the 23rd of February, 2021, Nichel Gaba, the CEO of PDAX, held a press conference about the matter at large. He explained that the exchange saw a massive influx of traffic, and the stress apparently introduced a glitch in the not-so-robust system of the exchange. This glitch allowed funded orders and unfunded orders to match with each other. Once the event started, it built momentum until the Bitcoin’s price was far lower than it had any right to be within the exchange.

Trying to defend his exchange’s mess in the eyes of the public, he assured the users that are upset they didn’t get Bitcoin at $6,000 apiece that there was no Bitcoin at that price, to begin with.

Gaba further claimed that “only” 0.2% of the exchange’s users are still unable to actively log into their respective accounts, as of the 23rd of February, 2021. This is, of course, that those numbers are even real, to begin with, and not based on some vague technicality.