$40 Billion Bitcoin Error Rocks Bithumb as Internal Controls Collapse
Hey FinTech Fanatic!
South Korea’s second-largest crypto exchange, Bithumb, just admitted to a $40 billion transfer error after an internal system failure. 👀
During a promo payout, the exchange distributed 620,000 Bitcoin instead of 620,000 Korean won. That’s roughly 15x its reported BTC reserves. A 24-hour processing lag meant balances weren’t updated in real time.
No hard stop. No safeguard. The transfer went through. The result? A temporary 17% Bitcoin price drop on Bithumb’s platform. 86 users managed to sell nearly 1,800 BTC within 35 minutes before accounts were frozen.
Regulators are now stepping in, and affected users are legally required to return funds...
Meanwhile, Elon Musk says “X Money” will launch as a limited external beta within one to two months
The payments feature is currently in closed internal testing. Musk calls it the future hub for all financial transactions inside X.
Think social, messaging, AI, and payments in one app. Visa is already a partner. Early focus appears to be fiat-based payments.
One story shows what happens when infrastructure breaks.
The other shows what happens when someone tries to rebuild it from scratch.
Which one shapes the next phase of digital finance? 🤔
Scroll down for the full breakdown 👇 I'll be back next week with more stories from the industry.
Cheers,
INSIGHTS
🇪🇸 Agentic payments: the next frontier in digital commerce by Getnet. The blog explains that consumers increasingly expect seamless, low-friction experiences, and highlights McKinsey’s estimate that agentic commerce could generate $3–5 trillion in global value by 2030. Agentic payments allow users to set intent, limits, and conditions in advance. Read the full article here
🤯 Stripe is now valued at 3x Adyen??
Same industry. Very different story. Let's dive in👇
FINTECH NEWS
🇯🇵 Japan's PayPay app eyes Nasdaq in $19.6bn IPO in March. The company will submit registration documents to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission this month. It will then sound out institutional investors through a book-building process based on an indicative price range before setting the final offer price.
PODCAST RECOMMENDATION
🎤 How 2025 Reshaped FinTech by DashDevs. FinTech Garden hosts Igor Tomych and Dumitru Condrea review the major shifts that reshaped FinTech in 2025, a year defined by regulatory change rather than incremental progress. The episode covers themes such as stablecoins becoming corporate treasury tools, vertical SaaS emerging as a new form of community banking, and open finance overtaking open banking. Watch the full episode
How 2025 Reshaped FinTech by DashDevs
PAYMENTS NEWS
🇦🇿 Mastercard reaffirms long-term commitment to Azerbaijan’s digital future. During meetings with government counterparts, Mastercard emphasized that it values the strategy and priorities set by the President and the Government of Azerbaijan and reiterated its willingness to collaborate on areas such as digitalization, artificial intelligence, and supporting the development of small and medium-sized enterprises.
🇳🇿 Airwallex kicks off Super Rugby partnership as official business finance partner of the Blues. As the Official Business Finance Partner of the Blues, Airwallex will modernise the club’s financial and commercial operations, from simplifying travel expenses and day-to-day spend to managing domestic and international payments.
🇬🇧 Ecommpay named in CNBC/Statisa Top 150 FinTechs List. The ranking highlights leading FinTech companies across multiple market segments, selected through Statista research and CNBC editorial input. Ecommpay said the inclusion reflects its focus on innovation, sustainability, accessibility, and inclusive payment solutions as the UK remains a major global FinTech hub.
🇺🇸 ‘X Money’ to launch limited external beta within two months. Musk said during an ‘All Hands’ presentation at his AI company xAI that “X Money is currently running as a closed beta internally,” adding that it will “be introduced as a limited external beta in one to two months.”
🇮🇹 Nexi unveils SmartStation. The new modular offering is specifically designed to simplify and digitize in-store acceptance for a wide range of store formats, enabling software-integrated commerce and payments for merchants. Keep reading
🇨🇳 Alipay AI Pay solution hits 120m transactions as Chinese shoppers tap agentic commerce. Alipay collaborated with Rokid to enable developers to integrate AI payment into the AI agents they build on Rokid’s Lingzhu platform. Based on the MCP model, developers can access this capability and deploy it on smart devices through natural language rather than complex coding.
🇦🇪 UAE Central Bank approves launch of Dirham-backed stablecoin DDSC. Backed by IHC, Sirius, and FAB, DDSC is designed for institutional use cases, including payments, settlement, treasury management, and trade flows. Continue reading
🌍 Starbucks taps Adyen to power in-store payments across 940+ European stores. The migration was completed in just seven weeks and has already processed more than 20 million transactions, with store staff reporting faster and more intuitive payments.
🇺🇸 Cash App adds payment links so you can get paid in a DM. The feature allows app users to send payments via a hyperlink that can be attached to a variety of communications. Cash App says that the links can be used for recurring payments as well as group payments.
🇺🇸 Nixxy, Inc. announces strategic partnership with PayToMe.co to accelerate Telco + FinTech convergence. The partnership is designed to integrate PayToMe. co's proven embedded payment and invoicing capabilities into Nixxy's global telecom footprint, bringing payments, settlement, and compliance automation.
FINTECH RUNNING CLUB
🇮🇹 Join our newest FRC Chapter in Rome!
Meet Daniela Munteanu and RSVP here!
DIGITAL BANKING NEWS
🇲🇽 Nu Mexico’s total investments expected to reach US$4.2 billion by 2030 as banking launch approaches. This substantial contribution drives robust and continuous growth, with the company adding approximately one million new customers per quarter and approaching 14 million customers.
🇵🇰 Raqami Islamic Digital Bank gets commercial banking licence in Pakistan. The aim is to enable collaboration with FinTech firms, telecom operators, and other partners. This infrastructure will support real-time, personalised, and Shariah-compliant digital financial services as the bank expands its operations.
🇪🇺 EU kicks off bank rules consultation in next step toward reform. The European Commission is kicking off a consultation period to find out how the region’s banks stack up against international rivals. Stakeholders can submit feedback in March and April, which will inform a report that it plans to publish in the third quarter.
🇵🇪 BiPay, Bitel's digital wallet, receives authorization from Peru's financial regulator to organize itself as an electronic money company. As the resolution indicates, a company that operates under the Bitel Peru brand has approved participating as a majority shareholder in the constitution of BiPay.
BLOCKCHAIN/CRYPTO NEWS
🇺🇸 Coinbase Introduced Agentic Wallets. Agentic Wallets are the first wallet infrastructure built specifically for agents. Equip agents with autonomous spending, earning, and trading capabilities in minutes, with built-in security guardrails and the battle-tested x402 protocol.
🇰🇷 Bithumb admits $40 billion transfer error after internal system failure. The exchange confirmed it mistakenly distributed approximately 620,000 Bitcoins instead of 620,000 Korean won, leading to a temporary 17% decline in Bitcoin’s price on its platform. Read more
PARTNERSHIPS
🇧🇪 Defrancq pioneers Wero invoice payments via POM. The rollout marks Wero’s expansion beyond person-to-person transfers into business payments, offering higher transaction limits and a smoother invoice settlement experience. Initially available to customers of ING and KBC, broader bank support is expected later this year as Wero scales across the Belgian market.
🇺🇸 Yuno partners with BVNK to power stablecoin payments for global commerce. The integration provides Yuno customers with direct access to BVNK's digital asset infrastructure, allowing businesses to accept and process stablecoin transactions alongside traditional payment methods through Yuno’s unified global payments platform.
🇺🇸 MoonPay launches MoonPay Deposits to simplify wallet-to-wallet crypto transfers, now available in Wallet in Telegram. With this launch, more than 100 million users can now fund their TON Wallet using crypto held on other networks, with assets automatically converted into the tokens supported by the platform.
🇯🇵 PayPay and Visa enter into a strategic partnership agreement to advance global and domestic payment innovation. Through this broad-based partnership globally and in Japan, PayPay and Visa will combine their respective strengths and begin exploring collaboration aimed at creating new cashless payment experiences.
🇺🇸 zerohash integrates Monad to power real-time USDC stablecoin payments. The integration allows FinTechs and payment platforms to launch stablecoin-powered flows through zerohash’s APIs and SDKs without managing blockchain infrastructure, custody, liquidity, or compliance themselves.
🇨🇴 AstroPay and Xoom enable direct payouts to the AstroPay Wallet. With this integration, Xoom users can choose the AstroPay wallet as their destination directly from the Xoom website or app. Funds are delivered quickly, providing a convenient solution for users.
🌎 Backbase and VASS partner to accelerate digital transformation in wealth management and business banking. The collaboration will accelerate digital modernization for banks across Spain and Latin America, with a specific focus on Wealth and Business Banking segments, where digital underinvestment has created significant growth opportunities.
🇺🇸 Sabre, PayPal, and Mindtrip partner to deliver the industry’s first end-to-end agentic AI experience for travel. Together, the companies are replacing today’s fragmented multi-step booking processes with a single, intelligent experience that moves seamlessly from inspiration to action, with the product set to launch in Q2 2026.
DONEDEAL FUNDING NEWS
🇬🇧 London FinTech Tangible raises $4.3M in seed funding. Tangible says it will use the funds to expand its team and develop new products. Tangible works with a broad range of lenders, from private credit and hedge funds to equipment financiers and traditional banks.
🌍 Bracket just raised a $7M seed round. The $7 million investment will help Bracket develop new products, expand internationally with new offices in Europe and Australia, and double its team in the next 12 months. Read more
🇫🇷 Rivage raises €2.6M to expand payroll software across accounting firms. The funding will support two main priorities: continued development of the platform to improve the efficiency and reliability of each stage of the payroll cycle, and the expansion of collective agreement coverage.
🇬🇧 FinTech Overmind raised €2.3 mn to secure agentic AI in regulated sectors. The funds will help to expand its engineering team, accelerate product development, and scale go-to-market efforts across legal, healthcare, and FinTech sectors where agentic AI deployment faces strict regulatory and data privacy constraints.
🇰🇷 Kbank sets IPO price at bottom end of range to raise $345 mln. South Korean online lender Kbank said it had priced its initial public offering (IPO) at the bottom end of its indicative range to raise 498 billion won ($345.81 million). Read more
🇺🇸 Uptiq raises $25M to add AI agents to bank workflows. The company intends to use the funds to expand operations and its development efforts. Uptiq allows organizations to move to AI via pre-packaged, production-ready AI applications and digital workers designed specifically for financial services.
🇧🇷 Zippi raises R$ 220 million and projects to move R$ 10 billion. With the new resources, the company plans to expand its number of active clients by the end of 2026. It also states that it intends to increase the transaction volume per client as the portfolio matures.
M&A
🇺🇸 Grab signed definitive agreements to acquire Stash. Grab has agreed to acquire 100% of Stash Financial in a staged deal valuing Stash at about $425 million. Expected to close in Q3 2026 pending regulatory approval, the acquisition adds Stash’s $5 billion in assets under management.
MOVERS AND SHAKERS
🇭🇺 Gábor Petrás has become the head of Revolut's Hungarian branch. “His activities will greatly contribute to Revolut’s goal of becoming the primary bank for customers in Hungary,” the FinTech company writes. Keep reading
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