Lubian

History

2020: Hacking and theft of 127,426 bitcoins

Unknown attackers in December 2020 hacked into the wallets of the Chinese mining pool Lubian and stole 127,426, bitcoins which at the exchange rate at the beginning of August 2025 are estimated at $14.5 billion, which makes this incident one of the largest hacker attacks in the history of the cryptocurrency industry. The stolen digital assets moved the attacker to 13th place in the list of the largest holders bitcoin in the world, while the stolen funds still remain motionless at addresses controlled by hackers. This was announced by the analytical platform Arkham on August 4, 2025.

According to CoinDesk, information about a large-scale hack became public only five years after the incident, when Arkham specialists conducted their own investigation and published the results on social network X. Official confirmation of the analysts' version has not yet been received from law enforcement agencies or the affected pool itself.

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Фото: Freepik

Lubian's mining pool was a little-known organization that worked exclusively with private clients and served miners from China and Iran. The company appeared on the public mining market in May 2020 and disappeared in early 2021 almost as suddenly as it appeared.

At the time of the alleged hack in December 2020, the stolen bitcoins were estimated at $3.5 billion. A significant increase in the value of the main cryptocurrency over the years increased the damage to a record size, exceeding the losses from other well-known hacker attacks on cryptocurrency services.

According to Arkham, about 11.9 thousand bitcoins worth $1.35 billion are stored at addresses that continue to be controlled by Lubian representatives. Neither the hackers nor the mining pool itself have sold or moved stolen digital assets since the alleged hack.^[1]

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