If it is going around in social media and most financial portals, it is big news! BlofkFi Inc, a crypto-lending startup firm had in May 2021 made a huge blunder and that is where it has benefited a lot of its members.
Turning back the clock
It was supposed to be a promo payout involving US Dollars but BlockFi had sent out Bitcoin instead. Efforts to reverse (recalling back the Bitcoin) the situation has been underway ever since the news broke out but reports have already been circulating that some of those who received the cryptos have already withdrawn the coins. To this end, BlockFi claimed that it was not more than 100.
Nothing has changed
Even with this blunder, BlockFi’s operations are still ongoing and nothing is affected. It claims that those that has been given out were just a fraction of their loss reserves which means there will no impact on their current platform. Some members have since returned the coins. On social media meanwhile, screenshots of the deposits have already been circulating. One of them showed a deposit of 700 BTC and that amount is huge at the current price BTC is at.
So, who is BlockFi?
BlockFi is one of the most popular non-bank cryptocurrency companies around where it is involved in borrowing and lending crypto products as well as facilitating crypto trading too. It has emailed the users who inaccurately received the Bitcoin to return them. What makes this issue so significant is that BlockFi has been one of the faster-growing firms in the first few months of 2021. Market observers believe that this was just a glitch and it has happened previously even among the bigger banks like Citigroup. In 2020, Citigroup mistakenly sent payments to some lenders so this is not something that is uncommon.
As of 20 May 2021, BlockFi claimed that there is still some US$10 million which has yet to be recovered. Perhaps it is the time taken for them to do so. The bonus giveaway was launched in March 2021 which was calculated from the percentage of the trading volume. It took them about 2 months (14 May) to realize that they made the mistake where users received BTC and not fiat as planned.
