A stunning revelation by Arkham Intelligence has just rocked the crypto world. Back in December 2020, a silent but massive theft took place at LuBian — a now-defunct Chinese-Iranian Bitcoin mining pool. A total of 127,426 BTC was stolen. At the time, the haul was worth around $3.5 billion. Today? That stash is valued at nearly $14.5 billion, making it the largest crypto heist ever recorded in USD terms.
🔍 How It Happened — A Breakdown of the Breach
The exploit stayed hidden for almost five years.
Only one transaction—a consolidation in July 2024—has been recorded since the breach.
Arkham attributes the theft to flawed private key generation, which left the pool vulnerable to brute-force attacks.
Despite being a mining operation assumed to follow secure protocols, LuBian’s security lapse proved catastrophic.
In a desperate attempt to communicate, the pool made 1,516 OP_RETURN messages, spending ~1.4 BTC trying to plead with the hacker for the return of the funds.
By the end of December 2020, LuBian salvaged what it could—11,886 BTC (~$1.35B) was moved to recovery wallets.
📊 How It Compares to Other Crypto Heists
In Bitcoin terms, the Mt. Gox disaster (744k BTC) was bigger.
But in USD value, this LuBian breach dwarfs the infamous Bitfinex (119k BTC) and ByBit (~$1.5B) hacks.
Quiet and under the radar, it has now become the largest crypto theft ever recorded by dollar value.
⚠️ What This Tells Us About Crypto Security
Risk AreaLesson LearnedMining & Custodial SystemsRequire audited key-generation methods and enforced internal separation of access.Cold Wallet ActivityDormant wallets with no clear explanation should raise red flags.OP_RETURN CommunicationsWhile ineffective, these desperate messages may carry legal consequences later.
🧠 The Silent Danger
What makes this hack uniquely terrifying is its silence. No headlines. No alerts. Just 127,426 BTC quietly siphoned away and left untouched.
This event rewrites the rules: it’s no longer enough to just secure smart contracts—entire infrastructures, especially mining and custodial setups, need full audits. Because sometimes, the worst attacks aren’t loud—they’re invisible.