- 127,426 BTC stolen from LuBian Mining Pool in late 2020—price $14.5B at the moment.
- On-chain messages from LuBian begged the hacker to return funds.
- The stolen BTC has barely moved in virtually 4 years. Nonetheless no ID on the attacker.
Seems one of many largest Bitcoin thefts in historical past may’ve flown utterly below the radar. In keeping with new intel from Arkham, a crypto pockets tied to a low-profile Chinese language mining pool—LuBian—was quietly drained of 127,426 BTC again in December 2020. That’s over $3.5 billion on the time. No headlines, no statements. Simply… vanished.
And no person talked about it. Till now.
The Hack That (By some means) No One Knew About
Arkham dropped a thread on August 2 that’s acquired people speaking. Their staff says they’ve related the dots between this huge outflow and LuBian—a mining pool that, again in 2020, managed almost 6% of Bitcoin’s hash price. So yeah, not precisely small fries.
On December 28, 2020, LuBian’s pockets acquired wrecked. Over 90% of their BTC disappeared. Gone. Two days later, one other breach occurred—$6M in BTC and USDT, traced again to an handle operating on Bitcoin’s Omni layer. Issues simply stored spiraling.
By December 31, no matter cash had been left—roughly 11,886 BTC—had been shoved into restoration wallets. However by then, many of the treasure was lengthy gone.
They Even Tried Messaging the Hacker on the Blockchain
Right here’s the place it will get bizarre. Arkham discovered that LuBian truly tried speaking to the hacker. They used one thing known as OP_RETURN messages—mainly notes written onto the Bitcoin blockchain—to beg the attacker to return the cash. In whole, they spent 1.4 BTC on over 1,500 of those messages.
That’s not regular habits for a scammer attempting to pretend a hack. It strongly suggests the unique pockets proprietor was determined and legit.
Arkham suspects LuBian could’ve tousled their key technology course of—most likely one thing weak in the best way non-public keys had been created, which left them weak to brute-force cracking. If true, that’s a brutal strategy to lose billions.
The Cash Are Nonetheless Out There… Sitting Quietly
Since then? Crickets. A lot of the stolen BTC has barely moved, other than one pockets shuffle in July 2024. However now, because of BTC’s worth surge, the loot is price round $14.5 billion. That makes this thriller pockets the thirteenth largest BTC holder ever recorded. Greater than even Mt. Gox’s hacked stash.
Arkham has arrange trackers for each the suspected hacker pockets and what’s left of LuBian’s stash. As of now, no names have been confirmed. Nobody’s been caught. And no cash have come residence.
If this actually is the largest Bitcoin heist in historical past, it’s additionally the quietest. And that’s… kinda eerie.