Coinbase Mispricing Allows Users in Georgia to Cash Out for 100 Times Rate
The bug saw Georgia's national currency, the lari (GEL), priced at $290 rather than $2.90.
Sep 2, 2022 at 10:24 a.m. UTCUpdated May 11, 2023 at 4:15 p.m. UTC
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Coinbase (COIN) users in the Eastern European country of Georgia were able to exploit a price bug that allowed them to cash out their holdings for 100 times the exchange rate, pocketing thousands of dollars in profit.
- Georgia's national currency, the lari (GEL), was priced at $290 rather than $2.90 on Wednesday. In an email to CoinDesk, Coinbase attributed the missed decimal point to "a third-party technical issue."
- The error allowed users holding $100 worth of lari on Coinbase to withdraw it to their bank account for $10,000.
- Some users who were able to take advantage reported that their bank accounts and debit cards were frozen by their banks after transferring their funds to them, which Coinbase said was not at its behest.
- Coinbase said the issue was exploited by 0.001% of its total users, or about 1,000 customers.
- While the size of the crypto exchange's loss hasn't been disclosed, a spokesperson described it as "a small non-material amount."
- "We fixed the issue and and are taking action to retrieve the improperly withdrawn funds,” the spokesperson said.
- The mispricing was reported earlier by Blockworks.
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Jamie Crawley is a CoinDesk news reporter based in London.