According to The Block, the blockchain intelligence platform Arkham Intelligence revealed that in December 2020, the LuBian mining pool was hacked for 127,426 Bitcoins (currently worth nearly $14.5 billion). This theft appears to be the largest cryptocurrency theft in terms of scale at the time, with the stolen Bitcoins valued at $3.5 billion.
The LuBian mining pool suddenly appeared in the mining market in late April 2020 and rapidly grew, at one point becoming the sixth largest mining pool on the Bitcoin network. Subsequently, the LuBian mining pool suddenly disappeared in February 2021, leading cryptocurrency investors to speculate that the pool may have been shut down by the government or has transitioned to a private pool. However, according to Arkham, the LuBian mining pool shut down after a large-scale hacker attack resulted in the theft of most of its reserves. 'They seem to have been first attacked by hackers on December 28, 2020, losing over 90% of their BTC.' 'Then, on December 29, approximately $6 million worth of BTC and USDT was stolen from an active Lubian address on the Bitcoin Omni layer.'
Arkham speculates that a flaw in the LuBian private key generation algorithm may have been the root cause of the attack. LuBian retained 11,886 BTC, currently worth $1.35 billion, which they still hold.
