South Korean UPbit Exchange inadvertently traded counterfeit cryptocurrencies valued at $14,800. The fake digital assets were initially mistaken for genuine, causing unintended transactions. Immediate actions were taken upon discovery to halt and rectify the situation, with recovery efforts underway for the illegitimate tokens.

UPbit explained on Tuesday, Sept. 26, that it spotted counterfeit cryptocurrencies from unidentified sources deposited into several accounts in UPbit. The crypto exchange said these were unlawfully passed off as assets from Aptos (APT).

In the process of depositing these fake Aptos tokens, UPbit admitted it mistook some of these items for real APT assets. This mistake prompted the trading of the tokens, with customers not knowing they were selling counterfeit tokens.

According to The Korea Times, when UPbit discovered the problem on Sunday, it immediately suspended deposits and withdrawals. The temporary halt of the services resumed in the late evening of the same day.

The company said the fake digital assets were determined to be worth a total of KRW20 million or about $14,800. It also assured users that it could recover two-thirds of the fake Aptos tokens. At this time, UPbit continues to work to retrieve the rest of the knockoffs.

Pulse News further reported that some insiders in the crypto sector also confirmed the incident with UPbit on Monday this week. The counterfeit crypto masked as APT was deposited on the platform, which was not detected early.

It was reported that this happened because of a new APT function that was only recently added. The said feature allows users to issue revised versions of native APT coins by simply using its mainnet platform.

Unfortunately, during this process, UPbit incorrectly recognized both fake and native coins as APT. The crypto exchange’s failure to set the two apart resulted in the selling of counterfeit crypto.

Photo by: UPbit Website