A massive bitcoin theft, described as possibly the largest in history, was just uncovered by blockchain analytics firm Arkham Intelligence. 

According to Arkham, 127,426 BTC, now valued at around $14.5 billion, was quietly stolen from the Chinese mining pool LuBian in December 2020.

Arkham’s analysis found that LuBian was first hacked on December 28, 2020 for over 90% of their BTC, then again on December 29 for $6 million worth of BTC and USDT. Two days later, LuBian reportedly moved their remaining funds, worth around $1.38 billion of BTC, to recovery wallets.

This story is an excerpt from the Unchained Daily newsletter.

“Neither LuBian nor the hacker have publicly acknowledged the hack,” said Arkham.

“It appears that LuBian was using an algorithm to generate its private keys that was susceptible to brute-force attacks. This may have been the vulnerability exploited by the hackers.”