A beforehand unreported Bitcoin theft from late 2020 has now been revealed as the most important crypto hack in historical past.
Based on a brand new evaluation by blockchain intelligence agency Arkham, 127,000 BTC—price $3.5 billion on the time—was drained from the Chinese language mining pool Lubian on Dec. 28, 2020. The breach went unnoticed for greater than 4 years and eclipses the latest $1.5 billion Bybit breach.
Lubian, as soon as a top-10 Bitcoin mining pool that managed almost 6% of the worldwide hash charge, abruptly shut down in early 2021. On the time, the crypto neighborhood attributed the exit to tightening rules in China and Iran, the place a lot of Lubian’s mining machines had been believed to function.
Arkham’s findings now level to a devastating safety failure as the true trigger. The agency believes the hack stemmed from weak personal key technology strategies.
Lubian has muted meltdown
Regardless of shedding almost all of its Bitcoin holdings, Lubian by no means disclosed the incident, nor did the hacker ever publicize the theft. In a determined restoration effort, Lubian issued over 1,500 small Bitcoin transactions containing pleas for the return of the stolen property. The pool additionally moved its remaining 11,880 BTC into designated restoration wallets.
The hacker has not tried to money out the stolen cash, which stay idle other than a 2024 consolidation into a brand new pockets tackle. Arkham’s report raises contemporary considerations over transparency and operational safety amongst main crypto infrastructure gamers—particularly as billions in property move by way of centralized entities with restricted oversight.
The invention retroactively redefines the size of crypto’s largest recognized heists and casts Lubian’s 2020 disappearance in a brand new, extra troubling mild. Investigations into the identification of the attacker and the exact vector of the exploit are ongoing.
