The $14.5 Billion Ghost: Crypto's Largest Heist Revealed Years Later
Blockchain analytics platform Arkham Intelligence has uncovered the largest crypto hack in history, which occurred in December 2020, targeting Chinese mining pool LuBian. The attack resulted in the theft of 127,426 Bitcoin (BTC), valued at approximately $3.5 billion at the time, and is now worth $14.5 billion.
Arkham Intelligence revealed that LuBian was compromised on December 28, 2020, with the threat actor siphoning 90% of the pool's BTC holdings. Neither the pool nor the hacker disclosed the attack for years. LuBian did embed an OP_RETURN message into the hacker's wallet addresses, costing them 1.4 BTC.
This incident surpasses previous major hacks, including the $1.5 billion ByBit exchange hack and a $330 million Bitcoin theft via social engineering. The retroactive discovery emphasizes the need for proactive security measures and stringent private key management in the crypto ecosystem.