Arkham Report: Record-Breaking Bitcoin Theft Unveiled

Arkham’s latest report discloses the staggering revelation of the largest Bitcoin theft in history. According to the report, a colossal amount of 127,426 BTC, valued at $3.5 billion at the time and approximately $14.5 billion presently, was stolen from the Chinese mining pool LuBian back in December 2020.

Key Details of the Theft:

Control Over BTC Hashrate: LuBian managed around 6% of the BTC hashrate as of May 2020.
Timeline of the Attack: The attack was initiated on December 28th, leading to the drainage of over 90% of the pool funds. Subsequently, on December 29th, an additional $6 million in BTC and USDT was stolen from the Omni wallet.
Asset Movement: By December 31st, the remaining assets were transferred to cold wallets.
Recovery Attempts: LuBian attempted to reclaim the stolen funds by sending 1,516 OP_RETURN messages to hacker addresses, incurring a cost of 1.4 BTC. This action was seen as compelling evidence of the messages originating from the legitimate team.
Vulnerability: Arkham’s analysis revealed that the pool’s weak key generation algorithm made it susceptible to brute-force attacks.
Rescued Funds: Despite the theft, 11,886 BTC were safeguarded and have remained untouched.
Recent Activity: The stolen BTC were last transferred in July 2024, solely for wallet consolidation purposes.