From LuBian's theft of 127,000 Bitcoin in 2020 to the Binance attack on October 30, cryptocurrency history recorded three thefts with a value exceeding one billion USD.

127,000 Bitcoins mysteriously disappear

In December 2020, Prince Group's LuBian Bitcoin mining system was attacked by hackers, causing 127,272 Bitcoins, worth 3.5 billion USD at that time, to be stolen in just two hours, becoming the first cryptocurrency loss to exceed the billion USD mark.

LuBian is a Bitcoin mining pool operating in China and Iran, once controlling nearly 6% of the computing power of the global Bitcoin network. According to blockchain data platform Arkham Intelligence, hackers took more than 90% of LuBian's Bitcoin in the first attack, then took another 6 million USD in Bitcoin and USDT a day later.

Arkham suspects LuBian uses a private key generation algorithm that has weaknesses, allowing hackers to detect keys using the brute-force method (trying many possibilities in succession) to control the wallet. However, the specific cause has not yet been confirmed.

After the incident, Chen Zhi, Chairman of Prince Group, sent about 1,500 messages on the blockchain, asking the hacker to return assets and promising a reward but received no response. The stolen Bitcoin remained in the wallet for nearly four years, before being transferred to a new address in mid-2024.

In October 2025, the US Department of Justice announced the prosecution of Chen Zhi for allegedly running an online fraud empire in Southeast Asia, claiming to collect 127,271 related Bitcoins, almost identical to the number of Bitcoins stolen from the LuBian wallet in 2020. In January, Cambodia announced the arrest and extradition of Chen Zhi to China to investigate allegations of transnational criminal activities.

Dozens of parties are claiming ownership of 127,000 Bitcoins, including Chen Zhi, and the US Department of Justice has never explained how it takes control of this cryptocurrency. A spokesperson for Chen and Prince Group said that the US accusations were just a "trick to distract from the question" that the Ministry of Justice avoided: Who carried out the digital currency theft in December 2020? How did those Bitcoins fall into the hands of the US government?

China's National Computer Virus Emergency Response Agency (CVERC) in November 2025 said that the US was the party behind the LuBian wallet attack, describing it as a "typical state-level hacking campaign".

Bybit lost 1.46 billion USD due to cold wallet manipulation

In February 2025, Bybit digital currency exchange was stolen by hackers 401,000 ETH, worth 1.46 billion USD. According to Bybit CEO Ben Zhou, the problem occurred when the exchange performed a transaction transferring Ethereum from a cold wallet to a hot wallet. This is a routine process in which the cold wallet is disconnected from the Internet and requires multiple people to confirm before making a transaction.

However, hackers were able to penetrate the system of Safe, the platform that supports transaction management and confirmation. Hackers change the content displayed on the screen, making those with approval rights think they are confirming normal transactions. In effect, this operation gave control of the wallet to the hacker.

After the attack, CEO Ben Zhou affirmed that it was capable of compensating for all losses, even if the money could not be recovered. However, the exchange still faces a wave of withdrawals. Data from DeFiLlama shows that total assets on exchange-related wallets decreased from $16.9 billion to $11.2 billion in just one day. Bybit then mobilized assets from partners and investors, restoring balances at a 1:1 ratio to customers within 72 hours of the hack.

Binance - victim of the largest hack in cryptocurrency history

On October 30, the Binance cryptocurrency exchange became a victim of a security incident involving many hot wallets. According to initial records from Arkham Intelligence, the wallets involved in the incident transferred assets worth $5.78 billion, including Bitcoin, Ether and many other digital currencies. In it, a hot wallet transferred 64 cryptocurrencies worth $2.53 billion to a new Ethereum address.

Later, Binance confirmed, estimating the total impact value to be about 6.3 billion USD.

Preliminary investigation results announced by Binance show that the incident may have originated from a compromised DevOps employee's computer. The exchange affirmed that it has not found evidence of the private key of the exposed wallet and that user assets are still safe, and announced that it will use the SAFU user asset protection fund and company resources to compensate for all losses.

A portion of related assets has also been frozen by industry units. Specifically, Tether froze more than 1.56 billion USD USDT, while Circle blocked 800 million USD USDC, helping to prevent the stolen money from continuing to be converted or used.

Zhong Dat

• Binance's billion-dollar hack may have been caused by an engineer's laptop being compromised
• Binance was hacked, transferring about 6 billion USD worth of digital currency