Arkham Intelligence, a leading company for blockchain data analyzes, recently discovered one of the largest Bitcoin robbery in history. According to their latest research, data on chains show that 127,426 BTC was stolen from Lubian, a Chinese mining pool with activities in China and Iran, in December 2020. At that time, the stolen assets were appreciated at around $ 3.5 billion. With the price increase of Bitcoin in recent years, however, the stolen funds are now worth an estimated $ 14.5 billion.
Lubian, once a major player in the global Bitcoin mining ecosystem, never publicly acknowledged the hack, nor has the hacker emerged. The stolen funds remained dormant and hidden from public attention until Arkham’s research brought them back to the spotlight. In an intense discussion within the crypto community, this revelation has led to the continuous security risks within industry, especially in mining and retention activities.
The pure scale of this theft makes it so far the largest documented Bitcoin robbery, which even the notorious Mt. GOX incident surpasses (25,000 BTC stolen). While Arkham continues to follow the movements of these funds, the incident raises urgent questions about transparency, cyber security and the persistent vulnerabilities within the global crypto infrastructure.
How Lubian lost more than 127,000 BTC from an important vulnerability
Lubian, once one of the world’s largest Bitcoin-Mijnbouwpools, checked almost 6% of the total hash rate of the network from May 2020, however, their fame was crushed by a catastrophic infringement of the security that Arkham Intelligence recently recently exposed. According to Arkham’s analysis, Lubian was hacked for the first time on December 28, 2020 and lost more than 90% of their BTC reserves in a single exploit. Only a day later, on December 29, an extra $ 6 million in BTC and USDT was stolen from a Lubian address that was active on Bitcoin’s Omni layer.
In a desperate attempt to restore their funds, Lubian rotated the remaining assets to recovery portfolios on 31 December. Lubian in particular tried to communicate directly with the hacker via the blockchain, whereby on_return messages were embedded in transactions. They spent 1.4 BTC over 1,516 transactions to broadcast these plea, a clear indication that these were legitimate recovery attempts and not the result of another malicious actor Bruut-Forcing their keys.
Arkham’s research points to a critical error in the private speech generation of Lubian process. It seems that Lubian used an algorithm that is vulnerable to brutal-force attacks, a weakness that operated hackers at 127,426 BTC. Despite the massive theft, Lubian managed to retain 11,886 BTC – firmly valued at $ 1.35 billion – which remains in their control.
With regard to the stolen BTC, Arkham reports that the last known activity of the hacker was a wallet consolidation in July 2024. The stolen coins still have to be washed or silvered, so that the crypto community is kept at high report. This infringement not only emphasizes the continuous risks in blockchain protection, but also underlines the need for rigorous important management practices in industry.
Bitcoin Weekly Close will set the tone for August
Bitcoin is approaching a critical weekly closure after a breakdown of his consolidation range. The price fell under the most important support level of $ 115,724 and reached a local low of $ 112,104. BTC is currently acting around $ 112,726, just above the weekly progressive average of 50 days on $ 90,459, with the relocation averages of 100 days and 200 days far below the current price, indicating a strong upward trend in the long term.
However, the rejection near the $ 122,000 resistance underlines a possible shift in Momentum as the sales pressure. A weekly closure below $ 115,724 mark would confirm a breakthrough of the range of two weeks, which means that the door may be opened for further downward descent for the $ 110k $ 112k region. This level, which earlier at the end of June acted as a breakout zone, could now serve as a critical demand support.
On the other hand, if bulls succeed in reclaiming $ 115,724 before the end of Sunday, this would signal the power and resilience, invalidate the breakdown and keep the bullish structure intact. The volume is moderate during this deterioration, which suggests that the movement is more corrective than a trend remote. The next 48 hours will be crucial, because the weekly close will probably define the direction of Bitcoin in the coming weeks.
Featured image of Dall-E, graph of TradingView
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