Arkham Reveals $3.5 Billion Bitcoin Heist from Chinese Mining Pool Taken in 2020, Largest in History

A significant Bitcoin theft from 2020 has come to light nearly four years later, now recognized as the largest cryptocurrency heist ever identified.

Key Takeaways:

• Arkham has disclosed a previously unreported hack from 2020 involving 127,426 BTC taken from the Chinese mining pool LuBian.
• The breach exploited flaws in LuBian’s private key infrastructure, resulting in over 90% of its BTC being drained within a single day.
• LuBian made attempts to reach out to the hacker using Bitcoin’s OP_RETURN feature.

On Saturday, blockchain analytics company Arkham Intelligence announced that 127,426 BTC, valued at approximately $3.5 billion at the time and nearly $14.5 billion today, was stolen from the Chinese mining pool LuBian in December 2020.

LuBian experienced rapid growth in early 2020, becoming the sixth-largest mining pool on the Bitcoin network by mid-year.

Their website advertised it as “the safest high-yielding mining pool in the world.”

LuBian Disappeared in 2021, Leading to Shutdown Speculation

By February 2021, LuBian had vanished without any explanation, leading to speculation that it was either shut down by authorities or discreetly transformed into a private pool.

Arkham’s investigation suggests a more dramatic conclusion: a hack that depleted the pool’s assets.

“They seem to have been initially hacked on December 28th, 2020, for over 90% of their BTC,” Arkham stated.

The next day, attackers extracted an additional $6 million in BTC and USDT from a LuBian-associated address on the Bitcoin Omni layer.

The firm suspects that the Bitcoin theft resulted from weaknesses in LuBian’s private key generation system, which may have permitted brute-force attacks.

While 11,886 BTC, valued at approximately $1.35 billion, remains untouched in LuBian’s wallet, none of the stolen coins have been moved since July 2024.

Notably, LuBian sought to communicate with the attacker through Bitcoin’s OP_RETURN feature.

BREAKING: ARKHAM UNCOVERS $3.5B HEIST – THE LARGEST EVER
LuBian was a Chinese mining pool with operations in China & Iran. Based on an analysis of on-chain data, it appears that 127,426 BTC was taken from LuBian in December 2020, valued at $3.5 billion at the time and now worth… pic.twitter.com/PnIOKgMt0i

— Arkham (@arkham) August 2, 2025

In two transactions, the team stated: “To the whitehat who is saving our asset, you can contact us… to discuss the return of asset and your reward.”

The message included an email address, but it remains unclear if the hacker ever responded.

While the Mt. Gox collapse involved a larger amount of BTC, the LuBian breach stands as the largest confirmed cryptocurrency theft by value at the time of the incident.

Bitcoin Hacks, Theft Cost Investors $2.2B in H1 2025: CertiK

Crypto investors faced losses exceeding $2.2 billion due to hacks, scams, and breaches in the first half of 2025, primarily driven by wallet compromises and phishing attacks, according to CertiK’s latest security report.

Wallet breaches alone resulted in $1.7 billion in losses across just 34 incidents, while phishing scams accounted for over $410 million across 132 attacks.

Two significant incidents, including Bybit’s $1.5 billion hack in February and Cetus Protocol’s $225 million exploit in May, inflated the year’s losses, together totaling nearly $1.78 billion.

Excluding these, losses align more closely with previous years at around $690 million.

Ethereum remained the primary target, suffering over $1.6 billion in losses across 175 events.

The report also highlighted the increasing sophistication of phishing schemes and ongoing risks from social engineering, advising crypto users to verify links, avoid dubious sites, and utilize hardware wallets.

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