ARKHAM UNCOVERS THE LARGEST HEIST IN CRYPTO HISTORY: $3.5B STOLEN FROM LUBIAN A recent investigation by @arkham Intelligence has brought to light what appears to be the single largest cryptocurrency heist ever recorded. In December 2020, a staggering 127,426 BTC was stolen from LuBian, a prominent Chinese mining pool. At the time of the theft, the assets were valued at a colossal $3.5 billion. Today, that same amount of Bitcoin is worth approximately $14.5 billion, making the LuBian hacker the 13th largest BTC holder on Arkham's platform. This massive theft adds to the already alarming statistics of crypto losses due to security breaches. While the LuBian hack is a standout event, it is part of a larger trend of security vulnerabilities being exploited across the crypto space. ⏰ 2020: The year of the LuBian hack saw an estimated total of over $4.5 billion in crypto stolen. ⏰ 2021: Over $10 billion in crypto was stolen. ⏰ 2022: Over $3.5 billion in crypto was stolen. ⏰ 2023: Over $1.7 billion in crypto was stolen. ⏰ 2024: Over $2.2 billion in crypto was stolen. The cumulative total of crypto stolen from 2020 to 2024 is a staggering sum of over $21.9 billion. We don’t have reliable numbers for the time before but you can safely double that number. 2025 is turning out to be bumper year for hackers again. LuBian, which once controlled nearly 6% of the Bitcoin network's hash-rate, seems to have been a victim of its own security flaws. Analysis suggests the mining pool may have used a private key generation algorithm susceptible to brute-force attacks. The hackers successfully exploited this vulnerability, gaining access to the funds. In a desperate attempt to recover the assets, LuBian sent OP_RETURN messages to the hacker's addresses, pleading for the return of the funds. While LuBian managed to preserve 11,886 BTC (currently valued at $1.35 billion), the majority of the stolen funds remain in the hands of the hacker, who consolidated the assets in July 2024. The incident highlights two aspects in particular: weakness in older chains and intermediary centralization. The security of even the most established blockchains (read: older) like Bitcoin and Ethereum is still a huge problem that needs to be solved. The irreversibility of transactions is both a blessing and a curse. The code used in older blockchains is already outdated; the advent of artificial intelligence coded chains threatens their security even more. And then there quantum computing on the horizon. To date we still don’t have a single really quantum-resistant chain or protocol, only budding ideas. As the value of these assets continues to grow, so does the incentive for hackers to find and exploit vulnerabilities. The LuBian heist serves as a stark reminder that even with the most advanced technology, a single security flaw can lead to catastrophic losses. The crypto community must prioritize robust security measures, and ongoing innovation is required to make these networks truly secure for everyone.