China’s cybersecurity agency has accused the U.S. government of orchestrating a $13 billion bitcoin theft, involving the LuBian mining pool. The Chinese National Computer Virus Emergency Response Center claims that over 120,000 bitcoins were stolen from the mining pool in December 2020. This breach was recently identified by Arkham Intelligence as one of the largest crypto heists in history, drawing widespread attention across the cryptocurrency community.
The Chinese agency described the heist as a “state-level hacker operation” likely executed by the U.S. government. It noted that the movement of the stolen bitcoin was unusually slow and calculated, which suggests that the theft was carried out by a government entity, rather than by typical criminal hackers. The LuBian mining pool, which was launched in April 2020, grew quickly to become the sixth-largest Bitcoin mining pool before it was abruptly shut down due to the attack. Most of its assets were drained in the theft, leading to its collapse.
Alleged U.S. Involvement and Tensions Over Stolen Bitcoin
In addition to accusing the U.S. of the hack, the Chinese cybersecurity agency also linked the stolen bitcoin to funds seized by the U.S. government in its case against Chen Zhi, a Chinese national charged with wire fraud and money laundering. China speculated that the U.S. government may have used hacking techniques as early as 2020 to steal the 127,000 bitcoins associated with Chen Zhi’s case, suggesting that the incident was a “black eats black” operation orchestrated by a state-level hacking organization.
This new accusation from China only heightens the growing tensions between the U.S. and China over digital assets. While both countries compete for control of global cryptocurrency narratives, incidents like this underscore the vulnerabilities within the crypto ecosystem. As cryptocurrency continues to grow in influence, the security of digital assets becomes an ever-greater concern, with state-sponsored cyberattacks on the rise. The stolen funds and their movement remain a key point of investigation, with more developments likely in the near future.