THE BIGGEST Bitcoin HACK EVER, WORTH $3.5 BILLION, HAS BEEN DISCOVERED

The largest cryptocurrency hack ever recorded involved the theft of 127,426 BTC from the Chinese mining pool LuBian in December 2020. At the time of the theft, the stolen Bitcoin was valued at approximately $3.5 billion, but it has since appreciated to an estimated $14.5 billion based on current market valuations. This revelation comes nearly five years after the incident, with neither LuBian nor the perpetrators publicly acknowledging the massive security breach. According to Arkham’s on-chain analysis, the hack occurred on December 28, 2020, when over 90% of LuBian’s Bitcoin holdings were systematically drained from their wallets. The attackers exploited a fundamental weakness in LuBian’s private key generation algorithm, which made the wallets susceptible to brute-force attacks. Following the initial theft, the hackers returned on December 29 to steal an additional $6 million worth of Bitcoin and USDT tokens.

LuBian’s response to the hack highlighted the desperation of the situation. The mining pool spent 1.4 BTC across 1,516 separate transactions to send OP_RETURN messages to the hacker’s addresses, pleading for the return of their stolen funds. Despite the massive theft, LuBian managed to preserve 11,886 BTC, currently worth approximately $1.35 billion, by quickly rotating its remaining funds to recovery wallets on December 31, 2020. The stolen Bitcoin remains in the hacker’s possession, with the most recent activity being a wallet consolidation in July 2024. This process involves combining multiple wallet addresses to better manage large cryptocurrency holdings. The perpetrator now ranks as the 13th largest Bitcoin holder tracked by Arkham Intelligence, surpassing even the infamous Mt. Gox hacker.