BlockBeats news, on August 3, according to Arkham, LuBian, a former top ten mining pool globally, suffered a major security incident in December 2020, resulting in the theft of a total of 127,426 BTC, valued at 1.45 billion USD at current prices, becoming the largest Bitcoin theft in history.
Arkham stated that LuBian was a Chinese mining pool that had mining operations in China and Iran. In May 2020, it controlled nearly 6% of the total Bitcoin network's hash rate, having significant industry influence. The attack occurred on December 28, 2020, with attackers suspected of exploiting vulnerabilities in its private key generation algorithm and successfully stealing over 90% of its holdings through brute force methods. The next day (December 29), hackers transferred some BTC again, amounting to 6 million USD.
Additionally, LuBian attempted to plead with the hackers via on-chain OP_RETURN messages, requesting the return of the stolen assets. The official sent a total of 1,516 transactions with messages, consuming 1.4 BTC, further confirming that the incident was not a hoax.
Currently, LuBian still holds 11,886 BTC (approximately 1.35 billion USD), while the hackers' last on-chain activity was an address consolidation in July 2024. As of the disclosure date, the hacker still controls the stolen BTC, with an unknown identity, and their holdings rank as the 13th largest BTC holder globally, even surpassing the Mt. Gox hacker address.
