Arkham Analysts Uncover the Largest Bitcoin Theft in the History of the Cryptocurrency Industry

Arkham Intelligence has uncovered the largest bitcoin theft BTC $115,090.80 Bitcoin 0.55% Market capitalization $2.29 trillion VOL. 24 hours $1.24 billion in the history of the industry, which occurred in 2020. At that time, 127,426 BTC were withdrawn from the LuBian mining pool, which at that time was estimated at $ 3.5 billion. Today, the value of these assets exceeds $ 14.5 billion. According to Arkham, the hacker managed to steal more than 90% of all the coins in the pool before LuBian managed to transfer the remaining balances to backup wallets.

The incident occurred on December 28, 2020, but neither the pool representatives nor the attackers disclosed the details. Only now it has become known that it was theft, not the actions of the authorities or the transition to a closed mode, that caused the sudden disappearance of LuBian in February 2021. At the time of the attack, this pool was one of the six largest in the world and positioned itself as the «safest high-yield pool».

Experts found out that the vulnerability arose from a private key generation algorithm that was susceptible to brute-force attacks. This technical weakness allowed the attacker to gain access to large amounts of cryptocurrency. LuBian representatives tried to contact the hacker through the OP_RETURN field in the blockchain, sending 1516 messages and spending about 1.4 BTC, but they never received a response.

Now analysts note that the stolen bitcoins remain stationary. This may indicate that the attacker is either under investigation or fears that attempts to move the coins will intensify the investigation.

The LuBian hack has set a new record in the crypto industry, exceeding even the high-profile incident with the Bybit exchange, which previously lost $ 1.5 billion. Arkham Intelligence emphasizes the need to use reliable random number generators and multi-level security systems to protect digital assets.