According to Deep Tide TechFlow, on August 3, Arkham revealed that LuBian, which once ranked among the top ten mining pools globally, suffered a major security incident in December 2020, with a total of 127,426 BTC stolen, valued at $14.5 billion at current prices, making it the largest Bitcoin theft in history.
Arkham stated that LuBian was once a Chinese mining pool that operated mining farms in China and Iran. In May 2020, it controlled nearly 6% of the total Bitcoin network hash rate, demonstrating significant industry influence. The attack occurred on December 28, 2020, and the attacker allegedly exploited a vulnerability in its private key generation algorithm, successfully stealing over 90% of the holdings through brute force. The next day (December 29), the hacker transferred some BTC again, amounting to $6 million.
In addition, LuBian attempted to plead with the hacker for the return of the stolen assets through on-chain OP_RETURN messages. The officials sent a total of 1,516 transactions with messages, consuming a total of 1.4 BTC, further confirming that the incident was not a hoax.
Currently, LuBian still retains 11,886 BTC (approximately $1.35 billion), and the hacker's last on-chain activity was an address consolidation in July 2024. As of the disclosure date, the hacker still controls the stolen BTC, identity unknown, and their holdings rank as the 13th largest BTC holder globally, even surpassing the Mt. Gox hacker address.
