A video helps you understand Lin Malong: At 20, he stole 230 million with code, yet wore handcuffs on a private jet.
On his 20th birthday, Lin Malong's party was filled with supercar keys and champagne towers—no one knew that the source of this extravagance came from a string of code he typed.
This newly adult young man orchestrated a meticulously planned digital heist, creating the largest personal cryptocurrency theft in history: by exploiting vulnerabilities in cryptocurrency exchanges, he quietly transferred 230 million dollars worth of cryptocurrency within three months, skillfully evading early blockchain tracking technologies at every step from anonymous wallets to offline money laundering.
The revelry didn't last long. When he was about to fly to Dubai on a private jet, FBI agents stopped him at the boarding stairs—handcuffs restrained not just his wrists, but also the 'fast life' built on code and lies.
From a genius programmer to a prisoner, Lin Malong's story is like a mirror: in the era of rampant cryptocurrency growth, some used technology to create value, while others turned code into the key to theft. And this madness at 20 ultimately became the most glaring footnote in the history of cryptocurrency crime.
