Key Insights:
- Chinese mining pool LuBian lost 127,426 BTC five years ago in a hack that went unnoticed until now. This stash is worth $14.5 billion today.
- Arkham Intelligence believes that a private key flaw allowed attackers to brute-force LuBian’s wallets and steal these funds.
- The stolen Bitcoin has remained unmoved for years, another confusing part of the puzzle.
Arkham has just uncovered one of the most shocking crypto crimes in history. According to recent updates, the blockchain analytics firm revealed that LuBian. Once one of the biggest Chinese mining pools, it was secretly hacked for 127,426 Bitcoin.
This hack happened in December 2020, and the stolen funds were worth $3.5 billion. Today, that amount of Bitcoin has shot up to nearly $14.5 billion.
LuBian’s Fall From Mining Giant To Sudden Shutdown
LuBian launched five years ago and quickly scaled among competitors. The platform claimed to be “the safest high-yielding mining pool in the world.” However, by the end of that year, it had become the sixth-largest Bitcoin mining pool anywhere in the world.
A year after this, however, in 2021, LuBian vanished. Users, observers, and even regulators were left in the dark as rumours of government pressure or internal restructuring flew around.
However, the world knows the truth thanks to Arkham’s recent update. LuBian was crippled by one of the largest thefts in human history.
Arkham links LuBian hack to private key flaws
Per Arkham’s findings, the hacker hit the platform and drained over 90% of LuBian’s holdings in one fell swoop. Just one day later, an extra $6 million in BTC and USDT was stolen from a wallet on Bitcoin’s Omni layer.
Arkham believes the attacker used a brute-force attack on LuBian’s weakly generated private keys. This method indicates that LuBian’s key-generation algorithm had serious mistakes.
This allowed the hacker to guess or crack wallet access codes. “It appears that LuBian was using an algorithm to generate its private keys susceptible to brute-force attacks,” Arkham stated.
LuBian salvaged about 11,886 BTC by quickly transferring the remaining funds to its recovery wallets. It is now worth around $1.35 billion,
No word and no warning, just silence
The complete lack of comments after the hack makes this case even more disturbing. Neither LuBian nor the hacker mentioned anything about the stolen funds when it happened.
The public, investors, and even industry insiders knew nothing about why this mining pool suddenly crashed. So far, the attack has gone unnoticed for nearly four years, before Arkham discovered it while analysing blockchain data.
To this day, none of the stolen Bitcoin has moved, despite the massive rise in its value. This inactivity has been puzzling for analysts so far.
Many believe the hacker has not moved the funds for fear of being tracked. Others may be planning a cleaner and more untraceable cash-out.
LuBian Sends OP_RETURN Plea Messages
After the hack, LuBian attempted to contact the hacker by embedding messages in Bitcoin blockchain transactions. These messages use the OP_RETURN field, which is rarely used in normal transfers.
However, it can be used to store small data directly on-chain. Think of the OP_RETURN field as a “transaction details” input field in a normal bank transfer. LuBian wrote, “To the whitehat who is saving our asset, you can contact us… ”
LuBian seemed to be appealing to the hacker’s conscience and banking. It could be appealing on the possibility that the thief might be an ethical hacker who is willing to return the funds. So far, no reply has been made public, and no BTC has been returned.
This Hack Is Far Worse Than ByBit and other recent attacks
Until now, the ByBit hack in February was regarded as the biggest crypto theft ever. The ByBut hack compromised developer credentials and Amazon Web Services (AWS) tokens. This allowed the hackers to steal the funds quietly.
The LuBian hack has emerged as the largest confirmed crypto heist in history. Earlier in the year, another shocking case saw an older adult lose $330 million in BTC through a social engineering attack.
Only $7 million of those funds were frozen quickly. The LuBian case dwarfs all of the top 5 crypto thefts in history. Yet, it remained hidden in plain sight for nearly four years.
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