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Title: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: dree12 on April 19, 2014, 01:56:22 AM Last updated: November 16, 2014, 12:36:50 AM. (However, some entries remain on the backlog.)
List of Bitcoin Heists Following is the result of research on prior Bitcoin-related thefts. The list strives to be as accurate and informative as possible, and where possible I have provided references for assertions made within. For disputed thefts, I have applied best judgement and included the ones that were most publicly accepted. Because of the volatile nature of Bitcoin's exchange price, I have denominated heist estimates in BTC. Although not heists per se, major permanent bitcoin-denominated losses are also included in this list. If I missed any major thefts, heists, or losses, or if you have any other information to contribute to one of these events, please leave a reply in this thread. Note that this thread is relatively new and was created because of space limitations in the original thread (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=83794). Additionally, I would be grateful if contributors write commentary for each theft. Ideally, the theft descriptions should be as detailed as possible. Much of the present commentary is inadequate. Table of Contents
License This entire document is licensed under the public domain. If that would is not permissible in your jurisdiction, it can then be licensed under any permissible license of your choosing. The author of this list believes all information contained thereof to be factual; however, the author takes no responsibility for any losses associated with factual inaccuracies in the list. Factual inaccuracies Although I make every attempt to ensure information in the list is well-cited and factual, there is always the possibility of error (whether on my part or on my source's part). If you find a factual inaccuracy, please report it. You will be credited appropriately for such reports. Donation Donations are appreciated and are accepted at 1MLSW1nmYkHqaHWNNkHSAHct6exd8fYYLX (bitcoin:1MLSW1nmYkHqaHWNNkHSAHct6exd8fYYLX). Alternatively, consider a donation to a charitable cause. Many victims of these thefts accept donations, and they likely need the donations more than I. Scope Without properly-defined bounds, this list could not possibly be complete. Consequently, several clauses below limit the scope of the list. General Generally, a major heist, theft, hack, scam, or loss must cause damage greater than or equal to 500 BTC, in BTC damage only, to qualify for inclusion in this list. Thefts related to Bitcoin but with most damage in another currency do not qualify, unless customers were damaged in BTC. Borderline thefts may qualify if reasonable estimates are over or equal to 500 BTC. Thefts that do not strictly qualify but are of significant importance are listed in the thefts not included (#post_thefts_not_included) section. Losses are included only if they are unintentional. This obviates the need to include many incidents where people delete wallets due to lack of value at the time before 2011, and additionally prevents the inclusion of more recent “proof-of-burn” alternative cryptocurrencies that require bitcoins to be destroyed. If a theft is included on this list because it was thought at the time to qualify, but more recent analysis shows that it does not, it may potentially remain on this list despite not meeting the requirements. Understood risk Some losses of Bitcoin to third parties cannot in principle be classified as scams or losses. While it is certainly true that some securities are intended as scams, and they should certainly be included in the list if they are, several high-profile company disasters could not be honestly included on this list. For instance, a company's failure to return funds raised during the IPO through profits is not in itself sufficient to be a scam. The risk involved here is an “understood risk”. However, this does not absolve all who create securities. Those who intend the securities to be a scam, or through negligence or willful blindness allow it to become a scam, will still be included on the list. In these scenarios, the risk to the investors is not agreed to by the investors, hence it is not an “understood risk”. Incompetence by itself is however insufficient for a security to be classified as a scam. Other trivial incidents can be excluded by the same principle. For example, a large gambling loss is obviously not a scam, because the risk was understood. But if evidence indicates that the casino rigged the games, then the risk is no longer understood, and the incident is eligible for the list. Because sometimes the evidence is not clear-cut, this list includes or refuses to include incidents based on the best evidence available. If a reasonable interpretation of the event suggests that it was not within understood risk, it will be included in this list, even if alternative interpretations exist. This policy does not apply to thefts. Managing Bitcoin prices It is well-known that Bitcoin prices are volatile. Before 2011, the value of a single BTC was extremely low. Consequently, this list ignores most events that occurred before 2011. If a theft, hack, scam, or loss caused damage less than 5000 BTC before 2011, it is not listed on this list at all. For several years during which the Bitcoin price fluctuated greatly, there are also USD cutoff values. In those years, both the BTC cutoff value and the USD cutoff value must be met for the theft to be included. Cutoff values so far are below:
Included borderline thefts Before 2014, another clause was used to include several thefts due to the rapidly appreciating Bitcoin price. This clause is no longer in effect. Borderline thefts, which had less than 1000 BTC in total damages, may still have been included if their total damage when measured in June 2013 BTC exceeds 500 BTC. This measurement was based on Mt. Gox price data prior to 2013-06-09, Bitstamp price data after 2013-06-10, and US CPI data published by the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics. Instructions For ease of navigation, I have assigned each theft a name. Note that this name is neither official nor permanent and is used solely for ease of navigation. To search for the heading that details the actual theft, simply use your browser's Find function and search for the name. This will either bring you to the theft itself, or a link to the theft. If the latter, simply click the link to be directed to the theft. Some links will appear in commentary and in lists. These can be clicked; their destination is set to the beginning of the linked incident's section. List of events by severity In this section, each theft is listed alongside the value stolen when converted to a January 2014 BTC equivalent along with the value stolen when converted to real (inflation-adjusted) USD.[1] (#post_ref_0) This represents the true value stolen and is generally the best list in that regard. Note that this list makes no effort to restrict the precision of the numbers nor to indicate what type of estimates each number represents. Please see the following list (#post_raw_list) for such data.
List of events by BTC value stolen NB: This section is out of date. In this section, each theft is listed along with its rank, severity, and time, ordered by the highest mBTC value stolen from most severe to least. To navigate to a theft, simply click on the link. Critical (≥10 kBTC)
Major (≥1 kBTC)
Borderline (<1 kBTC)
Title: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses [2] Post by: dree12 on April 19, 2014, 01:57:04 AM List of events in rough chronological order
Stone Man Loss Type: Loss Time: August 09, 2010, 11:35:00 PM ± 600 s Victim: Stone Man @BitcoinTalk Status: Coins lost, effectively destroyed Amount: Exactly 8999.00000000 BTC Equivalent in USD: 544 $ Equivalent in January 2014 BTC: 0.758 BTC Transaction of interest: eb5b761c7380ed4c6adf688f9e5ab94953dcabeda47d9eeabd77261902fccccf Due to not keeping proper wallet backups, 8999 BTC sent as change were effectively destroyed when the private key controlling them was lost. Ubitex Scam[2] (#post_ref_1) Time: April 2011 to July 2011 Victim: Investors on GLBSE of Ubitex Status: Ubitex founder known, but nothing has been returned Amount: About 1138.98 BTC[3] (#post_ref_2) Equivalent in USD: 15515 $ Equivalent in January 2014 BTC: 20.2 BTC Ubitex was the first company to be listed on the now-defunct GLBSE “stock exchange”, which has been criticized for its illegal operations.[4] (#post_ref_3) The company was run by a minor, but this fact was not initially known. Around 1000 BTC of the missing investments are said to have been “spent”, many of which were further scammed, or converted into USD without follow-up. The Ubitex scam would not have been possible today. Bitcoin users at the time were enjoying their newly-acquired wealth thanks to significant appreciation. Most “investors” at the time were extremely naïve. Stefan Thomas Loss Type: Loss Time: June 2011 Victim: Stefan Thomas Status: Coins destroyed (no thief) Amount: Estimate 7000 BTC[5] (#post_ref_4) Equivalent in USD: 124793 $ Equivalent in January 2014 BTC: 163 BTC Stefan Thomas, an early adopter (and eventually developer) of Bitcoin, uses this loss to teach other Bitcoiners the importance of backups—many of them. He had three copies of his wallet, and yet lost all of them. Allinvain Theft Time: June 13, 2011, 05:52:00 PM ± 600 s[6] (#post_ref_5) Victim: Bitcointalk.org user “allinvain” Status: Thief uncaught Amount: Exactly 25000.01000000 BTC[7] (#post_ref_6) Equivalent in USD: 445688 $ Equivalent in January 2014 BTC: 581 BTC Chief transaction of interest: 4885ddf124a0f97b5a3775a12de0274d342d12842ebe59520359f976721ac8c3 A polarizing theft, its authenticity has undergone much dispute. Some believe that it was set up as a ploy for donations. However, these critics often lack evidence to back up their claims. Indeed, the victim was an early adopter who mined many coins at a low cost, so there is little reason for him to sabotage Bitcoin's image. Although the hack attracted great attention in its day, said fame has mostly subsided. Even today, however, the hack still affects Bitcoiners. A common debate among Bitcoin users is that of “tainting” coins, and this hack is often used as an example for why “tainting” coins is futile. In just a few years, coins stolen in this hack are now present in nearly every user's wallet. This rapid redistribution is often cited as a reason that a tainted coin system would certainly fail. June 2011 Mt. Gox Incident Time: June 19, 2011, 06:00:00 PM ± 1 h (theft), days ensuing (hacks & withdrawals) Victim: Mt. Gox (some claim also customers) Status: Thief uncaught Components of theft:
Equivalent in USD: 47123 $ Equivalent in January 2014 BTC: 61.4 BTC Transactions: none released officially Mt. Gox, then the leading BTC/USD exchange service, suffered a severe breach as a consequence of an ownership change. The sale conditions involved a share of revenue to be remitted to the seller. To audit this revenue, the seller was permitted an account with administrator access.[8] (#post_ref_7) The seller's administrator account was hacked by an unknown process. The priveleges were then abused to generate humungous quantities of BTC. None of the BTC, however, was backed by Mt. Gox. The attackers sold the BTC generated, driving Mt. Gox BTC prices down to cents. They then purchased the cheap BTC with their own accounts and withdrew the money. Some additional money was stolen by non-attacking traders capitalizing on the dropping price and withdrawing in time, including toasty, a member of BitcoinTalk. Mt. Gox resolved the hack by reverting trades to a previous version. Many customers claim they have lost money from this reversion, but Mt. Gox claims it has reimbursed all customers fully for this theft. After the incident, Mt. Gox shut down for several days.[10] (#post_ref_9) The event's scale was widely disputed; some report a theft of almost 500000 BTC due to related account hacking. However, these reports are sparse and disreputable. Closer inspection puts the losses at closer to 2500 BTC. Aside from the direct damages of the theft, the hack involved a database leak. Some weaker passwords were used to conduct the relatively more severe Mass MyBitcoin Thefts (#post_mass_mybitcoin_thefts). Mass MyBitcoin Thefts NB: Not to be confused with the far more severe MyBitcoin Theft (#post_mybitcoin_theft). Time: 2011-06-20 through 2011-06-21 Victim: MyBitcoin users with weak account passwords Amount: Exactly 4019.42939378 BTC[11] (#post_ref_10) Equivalent in USD: 71656 $ Equivalent in January 2014 BTC: 93.4 BTC Transactions: all to 1MAazCWMydsQB5ynYXqSGQDjNQMN3HFmEu[12] (#post_ref_11) Users with weak passwords on MyBitcoin who used the same password on Mt. Gox were in for a surprise after the June 2011 Mt. Gox Incident (#post_june_2011_mt_gox_incident) allowed weakly-salted hashes of all Mt. Gox user passwords to be leaked. These passwords were then hacked on MyBitcoin and a significant amount of money lost. MyBitcoin estimates indicate 1% of MyBitcoin users were affected.[11] (#post_ref_10) Users that were not affected would be later stolen from anyways, due to the subsequent MyBitcoin Theft (#post_mybitcoin_theft). MyBitcoin Theft Time: Unknown time in July 2011 (claimed it was a process) Victim: MyBitcoin & customers Status: Thief unknown, planned shutdown suspected (disputed theft) Suspects: “Tom Williams”, likely pseudonym (founder of MyBitcoin) Amount: Exactly 78739.58205388 BTC Equivalent in USD: 1072570 $ Equivalent in January 2014 BTC: 1400 BTC Transaction information: none Little information was released about the MyBitcoin theft, however, many argue that Tom Williams ran it as a scam (and was not a theft per se). In terms of both dollars and bitcoins, this was by far the largest theft, however, it is possible it was simply a scam. Although MyBitcoin offered to release its code as a gift to the community, it failed to follow through on that promise. In the months ensuing, some evidence has been uncovered supporting mortgage broker Bruce Wagner; however, any evidence is inconclusive. The theft resulted in the closure of MyBitcoin, which was once a successful Bitcoin company in Bitcoin's early days. Bitomat.pl Loss Type: Loss Time: 2011-07-26 Victim: Bitomat.pl Status: Coins destroyed (no thief) Amount: Estimate 17000 BTC[13] (#post_ref_12) Equivalent in USD: 231570 $ Equivalent in January 2014 BTC: 301 BTC Bitomat.pl, during a server restart, had its remote Amazon service that housed the wallet wiped. No backups were kept. Mt. Gox later bailed bitomat.pl out, and neither customers nor original owners suffered any loss from the incident. Mooncoin Theft Time: 2011-09-11 Victim: Mr. Moon, Mooncoin, & Customers Status: Unknown (Federal intervention suspected) Amount: Estimate 4000 BTC[14] (#post_ref_13) Equivalent in USD: 22346 $ Equivalent in January 2014 BTC: 28.8 BTC Transactions: numerous During the waning months of 2011, numerous alternative cryptocurrencies boomed, in part fuelled by Bitcoin's poor performance following the 2011 bubble. Exchanges such as Moonco.in were set up to capitalize on this alternative cryptocurrency boom. Suddenly, Mr. Moon disappeared. It is not known where the funds went. At the time, SolidCoin was considered to be the most successful alternative cryptocurrency bar Bitcoin itself, though its success was short-lived. Moonco.in's hack had a devastating impact on that currency, with over 800000 SC removed from circulation, only to have been put back through SolidCoin 2.0. The effects on Bitcoin were also substantial, with an estimated 4000 BTC lost. and the effect on Namecoin (another alternative cryptocurrency that was among the largest at that time) was not negligible. Bitcoin7 Incident Time: 2011-10-05 (UTC) Victim: Bitcoin7 & Customers Status: Indeterminate amount returned to customers by Bitcoin7 Suspects:
Equivalent in USD: 15980 $ Equivalent in January 2014 BTC: 20.7 BTC An upstart exchange at the time, Bitcoin7, rapidly grew to the third-largest USD exchange (behind then-leaders Mt. Gox and Tradehill) but then suffered a major debilitating hack, or so the official story goes. It is widely suspected that there was no hack and Bitcoin7's operators simply ran away with the funds. Bitcoin7 shut down because of this hack. The magnitude served as a reminder to the Bitcoin community to stop trusting new exchanges without identification. The platform was however later sold for $10000 in 2013, and has since relaunched at Bitcoiner7.com but being branded still as Bitcoin7. October 2011 Mt. Gox Loss Type: Loss Time: 2011-10-28T21:11 (UTC) [blockchain time, off by up to three hours] Victim: Mt. Gox Status: Coins destroyed (no thief) Amount: Exactly 2609.36304319 BTC Equivalent in USD: 8340 $ Equivalent in January 2014 BTC: 10.8 BTC Transactions:
Title: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses [3] Post by: dree12 on April 19, 2014, 01:57:16 AM Bitscalper Scam[18] (#post_ref_17)
Time: January 2012 to March 2012 Suspects:
Status: MiningBuddy (bitcointalk.org user) attempted to reorganize bitscalper, but failed. No coins have been returned at all. Amount: Lower bound 1350 BTC[19] (#post_ref_18) Equivalent in USD: 6461 $ Equivalent in January 2014 BTC: 8.16 BTC Bitscalper was founded as an “arbitrage engine”, and users were invited to deposit money. It was promising extremely high and unrealistic returns. As a result, it was suspected of being a scam from the beginning, fears that were compounded due to a shady and anonymous management. After Bitscalper shut down without returning user funds, BitcoinTalk user MiningBuddy attempted to reform Bitscalper using the remnants of the engine. However, no success was found and the coins could not be returned. Andrew Nollan Scam[20] (#post_ref_19) Time: February 2012 Victim: Investors of Shades Minoco, creditors of bitcointalk.org user “shakaru”, investors of BitArb Status: Andrew Nollan (a.k.a. shakaru[21] (#post_ref_20)) (thief) known but disappeared, repaid some (not included in amount) Amount: Lower bound 2211.07786728 BTC, possibly more [22] (#post_ref_21) Equivalent in USD: 10895 $ Equivalent in January 2014 BTC: 14 BTC Linode Hacks Time: Late 2012-03-01, Early 2012-03-02 Victim: Bitcoinica, Bitcoin.cz mining pool (Marek Palatinus), Bitcoin Faucet, possible others Status: Thief unknown, not caught. Linode employee suspected. Amount: Lower bound 46653.46630495 BTC Composition of amount:
Equivalent in January 2014 BTC: 282 BTC Transactions of interest:
Betcoin Theft Time:
Victims: Betco.in, creditors Status: Hacker not known. Some of creditors' deposits were repaid, around 2900 BTC outstanding.[28] (#post_ref_27) Amount: Exactly 3171.50195016 BTC[29] (#post_ref_28) Equivalent in USD: 15534 $ Equivalent in January 2014 BTC: 19.5 BTC Transactions of interest:[30] (#post_ref_29)
Tony Silk Road Scam Time: 2012-04-20 Victim: Buyers on Silk Road Status: Scammer known to be Silk Road user “Tony76” Amount: Estimate 30000 BTC[31] (#post_ref_30) Equivalent in USD: 146944 $ Equivalent in January 2014 BTC: 184 BTC Users of Silk Road, an underground drug market using Bitcoin as the default currency, bought significant quantities of illicit drugs from trusted vendor “Tony76”. Although Silk Road has an escrow system, trusted vendors are allowed to bypass the system and request that the buyers pay first. On April 20, which is a popular day for drug sales in American culture, Tony76 offered drugs at a significant discount. However, none of the products made it to the customers, revealing the sale as an elaborate sham. May 2012 Bitcoinica Hack NB: Impacts of this theft may continue to grow pending outcome of liquidation. Time: May 12, 2012, 11:19:00 AM [blockchain time, off by up to three hours] Victim: Bitcoinica, LLC Status:
Equivalent in USD: 191638 $ Equivalent in January 2014 BTC: 241 BTC Chief transaction of interest: 7a22917744aa9ed740faf3068a2f895424ed816ed1a04012b47df7a493f056e8 Zhou Tong, former founder of Bitcoinica, discovered an entry into Bitcoinica's Rackspace server through an excessively privileged compromised email address. This caused the theft of the entire “hot wallet”, funds stored on-site, as well as the loss of the main database. No backups were kept. Bitcoinica shut down because of this incident. The claims process is still ongoing; however, Bitcoinica is now entering receivership. On December 21, 2012, it was discovered that BitMarket.eu, a company run by Maciej Trębacz, lost a large portion of customer funds which were stored on Bitcoinica.[32] (#post_ref_31) These customers were reportedly unaware that their funds were stored on Bitcoinica. Return of a portion of these funds is still possible, pending the outcome of liquidation. Bitcoin Syndicate Theft Time: July 04, 2012, 02:34:19 PM (Mt. Gox time) Victims:
Status: Pending Amount: Exactly 1852.61553553 BTC Equivalent in USD: 14595 $ Equivalent in January 2014 BTC: 18.5 BTC Medium of theft: Mt. Gox Transactions of interest: On Mt. Gox. Withdrawal transaction was 4c61d3639f010e30ad305b294cd128f381f58fc161d0badda1f39807dc2f12f7. A hacker infiltrated the Mt. Gox account used by Bitcoin Syndicate, sold off the USD owned, and withdrew all balances. July 2012 Bitcoinica Theft Time: 2012-07-13 (UTC) Victims:
Amount: Exactly 40000.00000000 BTC[33] (#post_ref_32) Equivalent in USD: 315133 $ Equivalent in January 2014 BTC: 399 BTC Medium of theft: On MtGox. On July 13, 2012, a thief compromised the Bitcoinica Mt. Gox account. The thief made off with around 30% of Bitcoinica's bitcoin assets, which are likely to cost claimants of Bitcoinica debt. Additionally, 40000 USD was also reported to be stolen. The thief is still unknown at this point, but the theft has supposedly been entirely returned. This theft further complicated the [#=may_2012_bitcoinica_hack]May 2012 Bitcoinica Hack[/iurl]. BTC-E Hack Time:
Suspects:
Amount: Estimate 4500 BTC[34] (#post_ref_33) Equivalent in USD: 35452 $ Equivalent in January 2014 BTC: 44.9 BTC On July 31, 2012, the BTC-E Liberty Reserve API secret key was broken. This key was shorter than it needed to be at only 16 characters long. The attacker initiated many Liberty Reserve deposits and injected large amounts of USD into the system, which were quickly sold for BTC. Not all BTC was withdrawn; official estimates state that the scope was limited to 4500 BTC. Similar to the June 2011 Mt. Gox Incident (#post_june_2011_mt_gox_incident), the BTC-E market was disturbed during the duration of the hack. The handling of this hack was widely applauded after BTC-E revealed they would cover the losses and revert to a backup made just before the hack. Kronos Hack Date: August 2012 Suspects:
Status: Legal action possibly pending Medium: Mt. Gox Amount: Estimate 4000 BTC[35] (#post_ref_34) Equivalent in USD: 42859 $ Equivalent in January 2014 BTC: 53.6 BTC Kronos.io, a Bitcoinica-esque startup, was hacked in an event shrouded in mystery even today. Led by Jonathon Ryan Owens, who was simultaneously running other new startups on GLBSE (an upstart Bitcoin “stock exchange”), Kronos.io hired several well-known Bitcoin personalities to do work with HTML and coding. One of these was Alberto Armandi, who was related to Bitscalper (#post_bitscalper_scam), a scam earlier that year.[36] (#post_ref_35) Alberto Armandi reportedly hacked into the website he himself helped code. The vulnerability was in the withdrawal script that Alberto coded, reportedly intentionally as a backdoor.[36] (#post_ref_35) Although incredible, Armandi has also released a story denying he hacked the website. Instead, he blamed the theft on Jonathon Ryan Owens intentionally pocketing the majority of the funds with only 1000 BTC being stolen by an unknown hacker.[37] (#post_ref_36) Bitcoin Savings and Trust Time: 2011–2012 Victim: Creditors of First Pirate Savings and Trust, later Bitcoin Savings and Trust Status: Trendon Shavers (Perpetrator) caught by SEC[38] (#post_ref_37) Amount: Lower bounds 150649 BTC[38] (#post_ref_37), 193319 BTC[39] (#post_ref_38), 200000 BTC[40] (#post_ref_39); Estimate 263024 BTC[41] (#post_ref_40); Upper bound >700467 BTC[42] (#post_ref_41) Equivalent in USD: 2983473 $ Equivalent in January 2014 BTC: 3700 BTC More information on Trendon Shavers default (#post_pirate_default). Bitfloor Theft Time:
Victims: Bitfloor, creditors Status: Hacker not known, but IP is 178.176.218.157. Some coins repayed to creditors. Amount: Upper bound 24086.17219307 BTC] Equivalent in USD: 273209 $ Equivalent in January 2014 BTC: 339 BTC Transactions of interest:[43] (#post_ref_42)
Cdecker Theft Time: September 28, 2012, 07:21:14 PM Victim: Cdecker Status: Thief IP may be 178.140.220.181[45] (#post_ref_44) Amount: Exactly 9222.21195900 BTC Equivalent in USD: 104607 $ Equivalent in January 2014 BTC: 130 BTC Transactions of interest:
2012 50BTC Theft Date: 2012-10-13 Victim: 50BTC Mining Pool Status: Unresolved. Transactions of interest:[46] (#post_ref_45)
Equivalent in USD: 13437 $ Equivalent in January 2014 BTC: 16.7 BTC The 50BTC mining pool suffered a hack of the billing software in late 2012. They were unable to identify the vulnerability. After the incident, 50BTC completely rewrote the billing software.[46] (#post_ref_45) 2012 Trojan Time:
Status: Thief IP may be:
Equivalent in USD: 39146 $ Equivalent in January 2014 BTC: 49.1 BTC Transactions of interest:
Title: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses [4] Post by: dree12 on April 19, 2014, 01:57:36 AM Bit LC Theft
Time: Discovered February 13, 2013 Victim: Bit LC Inc. and miners Status: Suspected theft by “Erick”, could be misunderstanding. Amount: Estimate 2000 BTC[48] (#post_ref_47) Equivalent in USD: 51480 $ Equivalent in January 2014 BTC: 63.4 BTC Transactions of interest: This alleged theft was unique in that coins held in the hot wallet were safe, but coins held in a cold wallet compromised. The thief is not expected to have access to the coins regardless, so there was little financial gain from this theft. Erick, allegedly the only one with physical access to Bit LC Inc.'s cold wallet, has failed to communicate and withdraw coins. Bit LC Inc. therefore was required to declare bankruptcy. There is no proof that Erick intentionally stole the coins; indeed, some evidence asserts that he or she may simply have disappeared in some manner. BTCGuild Incident Time: March 10, 2013 Victim: BTCGuild mining pool Status: 16 thieves, one has returned 47 BTC Amount: About 1254 BTC[49] (#post_ref_48) Equivalent in USD: 72556 $ Equivalent in January 2014 BTC: 88.9 BTC When BTCGuild was upgrading the Bitcoind client to 0.8, the mining pool used its original upgrade plan. However, 0.8 is unique in that it reindexes the blockchain. This prompted a temporary state in which the pool was paying out for difficulty-1 shares, as that was the extent of the blockchain parsed. Sixteen separate thieves subsequently emptied the hot wallet. 47 BTC have been returned to the pool. The pool would on the following day lose even more money thanks to a bug (#post_2013_fork) causing its recent upgrade to 0.8 to differ from nodes running 0.7 or lower. 2013 Fork Time: 2013-03-11 Victims: OKPay, many mining pools including slush, BTCGuild, etc. Status: OKPay double-spend attack resolved. Amount: Exactly 960.09645667 BTC[50] (#post_ref_49) Equivalent in USD: 55551 $ Equivalent in January 2014 BTC: 68.1 BTC A major blockchain fork occurred due to a bug in Bitcoin-Qt clients which had not upgraded to the new 0.8 version. Unfortuantely, those clients formed the majority of Bitcoin users at the time. The resulting fork split mining pools; those that had upgraded lost block revenue. Some mining pools took the hit, whereas others passed the cost on to miners. The fork also made possible isolated double-spending attacks. Only one such attack was conducted, costing OKPay significantly. Luckily, the thief has since returned the money. Bitcoin Rain Date: 2011-10-03 to 2013-03-28 Victims: Investors in Bitcoin Rain, account holders on Mercado Bitcoin. Perpetrator: Leandro César Amount: Estimate 4000 BTC[51] (#post_ref_50) Equivalent in USD: 231440 $ Equivalent in January 2014 BTC: 284 BTC A suspected long-running con likened to the infamous Bitcoin Savings and Trust (#post_bitcoin_savings_and_trust), Bitcoin Rain finally defaulted on March 28, 2013. Leandro César claimed there was a security breach on his exchange website Mercado Bitcoin.[52] (#post_ref_51) As Bitcoin Rain's funds were stored there, investors in Bitcoin Rain as well as account holders on Mercado Bitcoin lost money. Some money was reportedly paid back, but the vast majority is still outstanding. ZigGap Date: February to April 2013 Victim: Investors and creditors of ZigGap Amount: About 1708.65967460 BTC[53] (#post_ref_52) Equivalent in USD: 195490 $ Equivalent in January 2014 BTC: 240 BTC User aethero, who was originally a reputable Bitcoiner, founded ZigGap after two previously succesful ventures, including BitPantry. Purporting to offer easy ways to purchase BTC, ZigGap saw little business. The founder seems to have also suffered mental illness in the latter stages of business operation.[54] (#post_ref_53) Ozcoin Theft Time: 2013-04-19 Victim: Ozcoin mining pool Status: Thief, a user of Strongcoin, known but not disclosed. Strongcoin seized funds and returned 568.94 BTC to the mining pool operator.[55] (#post_ref_54) Amount: Exactly 922.99063322 BTC[56] (#post_ref_55) Equivalent in USD: 105600 $ Equivalent in January 2014 BTC: 130 BTC A hacker managed to infilterate Ozcoin's payout script, such that all money was paid out to the hacker's address. Luckily, a day later Strongcoin seized most of the stolen funds and promptly returned them to Ozcoin. Vircurex Theft Date: 2013-05-10 Victim: Vircurex and shareholders Transactions of interest:[57] (#post_ref_56)
Equivalent in USD: 163351 $ Equivalent in January 2014 BTC: 200 BTC The hot wallet and “warm” wallet of Bitcoin to alternative cryptocurrency exchange service Vircurex was emptied in May 2013, resulting in a significant loss of three currencies: Bitcoin, Terracoin, and Litecoin.[57] (#post_ref_56) Initially, Vircurex operated normally despite the loss, though it no longer paid dividends to shareholders. In March 2014, due to strain caused by large withdrawals (in addition to a default by AurumXChange, a fiat processor Vircurex used), Vircurex froze large quantities of many currencies; however, it promises to pay these back eventually.[59] (#post_ref_58) James Howells Loss Type: Loss Date: July 2013[60] (#post_ref_59) Victim: James Howells Amount: Estimate 7500 BTC[61] (#post_ref_60) Equivalent in USD: 627659 $ Equivalent in January 2014 BTC: 764 BTC A hard drive containing keys to bitcoins generated in 2009 were accidentally thrown away in 2013 after a period of meteoric price rallies. The owner, James Howells, reportedly attempted to retrieve the money by going to the landfill where the hard drive was buried, but gave up after learning of the difficulty of retrieving trash.[61] (#post_ref_60) Just Dice Incident Time: 2013-07-15 Victim: Just-Dice, Just-Dice investors Suspect: Just-Dice.com user “celeste”, who claims he was hacked. Status: Bets rolled back. Related transaction: 0aa67253b162c6ddae04bbc5b01a0283591a74288cdd1c2073a3181ec7e124da[62] (#post_ref_61) Amount: Exactly 1300.15500000 BTC[63] (#post_ref_62) Equivalent in USD: 108807 $ Equivalent in January 2014 BTC: 132 BTC A player on Just-Dice.com with an especially large balance asked to withdraw 1300 BTC.[64] (#post_ref_63) Because the hot wallet did not contain that much money, Just-Dice.com administrator Chris Moore (“dooglus”) manually processed the transaction from the cold wallet. However, he forgot to remove the balance in Just-Dice.com's database. The Just-Dice.com user then proceeded to bet the fake balance on the gambling website and subsequently lost it all. Because of the manner Just-Dice.com is structured, the website lost money even though the malicious user did not earn any money from the theft. To recoup losses, the operator rolled back the gambling losses and corrected the wrong balance. This resulted in losses for all “investors” of Just-Dice.com; however, the operator explains that nobody actually lost money because the bet should never have happened. In conclusion, it seems that odd decisions on the malicious user's part and probability ensured no actual loss from the incident, even though 1300 BTC was stolen. The amount was simply lost back to Just-Dice.com thanks to luck in the website's favour. Silk Road Seizure Dates:
Perpetrator: FBI seizure Amount:
Equivalent in USD: 26867560 $ Equivalent in January 2014 BTC: 32700 BTC Silk Road was a former underground marketplace that dealt primarily in Bitcoin. Run by Ross Ulbricht, it was once widely known for frequent narcotic sales.[67] (#post_ref_66) Although it operated under the jurisdiction of the United States, it made little attempt to comply with US law.[68] (#post_ref_67) However, clever use of the Tor technology allowed Silk Road to escape the authorities for years. Finally, in October 2013, the FBI was able to produce conclusive evidence of Ross Ulbrict's culpability. Ulbricht was found in San Francisco and arrested.[69] (#post_ref_68) In the days ensuing, it seized a large portion of Ulbricht's personal wealth in addition to stored balances by Silk Road users.[70] (#post_ref_69) However, the FBI has yet to successfully seize an estimated remaining 400000 BTC in Ulbricht's personal wallet.[71] (#post_ref_70). The first seizure came right as Silk Road's domain was seized, and included funds belonging to Silk Road users. The second seizure came several weeks later, seizing coins belonging to Ross Ulbricht himself. This seizure is notable in that it is the first major legally authorized seizure. At the moment, Ulbricht is awaiting trial in New York.[72] (#post_ref_71) GBL Scam Time: Between May 2013 to October 2013 Date of shutdown: 2013-10-26[73] (#post_ref_72) Victim: Chinese investors in “GBL”. Amount: Estimate 22000 BTC[73] (#post_ref_72) Equivalent in USD: 3437446 $ Equivalent in January 2014 BTC: 4190 BTC Beijing-based “GBL” was advertised as a Hong Kong-based exchange and shut down after attracting significant investment. At the time, there was a Bitcoin craze in China, which lasted for much of the latter half of 2013 and was credited as the leading cause of the November 2013 bubble. Inputs.io Hack Date: 2013-10-26[74] (#post_ref_73) (disputed) Victim: Inputs.io, passed on to creditors. Perpetrator: Accusations of inside job. Transaction of interest: 9536feebe3a50b94f85ca27d56e669a7209bd4188385d55c5b97227c95cf7f74[75] (#post_ref_74) Amount: Estimate 4100 BTC[76] (#post_ref_75) Equivalent in USD: 640615 $ Equivalent in January 2014 BTC: 780 BTC Inputs.io, a web wallet service run by BitcoinTalk user TradeFortress, was supposedly “hacked” in October 2013 and was unable to repay user balances in full. There are many accusations of the hack being an inside job. TradeFortress had a contentious reputation and had supposedly scammed two separate people before this incident.[77] (#post_ref_76)[78] (#post_ref_77) When the theft was announced in November 2013, TradeFortress began offering partial refunds; however, 4100 BTC was not paid back as that was the shortfall from the supposed “hack”. BASIC-MINING Date: October 2013[79] (#post_ref_78) Victim: Investors of BASIC-MINING Perpetrator: BitcoinTalk user “creativex” Amount: About 2131.000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 BTC[80] (#post_ref_79) Equivalent in USD: 332963 $ Equivalent in January 2014 BTC: 405 BTC Mining company BASIC-MINING took advantage of the ASIC boom to become a leading publically-traded mining company by early 2013. After the collapse of BTC-TC, the exchange on which it was traded, the founder disappeared with substantial assets. Bitcash.cz Hack Date: 2013-11-11 Victim: Bitcash.cz Perpetrator: Unknown Transaction of interest: 44f66e60460926d1ac75667ce3060429000f7cbd30e9afe5a1f3af62cae7727f[81] (#post_ref_80) Amount: Exactly 484.76688536 BTC[82] (#post_ref_81) Equivalent in USD: 247422 $ Equivalent in January 2014 BTC: 303 BTC A Czech Bitcoin exchange, bitcash.cz, reported a hack in mid-November 2013. The hack was relatively minor; however, Bitcoin prices were very high at the time relative to the preceding and succeeding months. BIPS Hack Date: 2013-11-17 Victim: BIPS, passed on to creditors Perpetrator: Unknown Transaction of interest: ec01b909b6522e005071e694e3d865056189faff1be516c5e95812720b8cf585[83] (#post_ref_82) Amount: Exactly 1295.00000000 BTC[82] (#post_ref_81) Equivalent in USD: 660959 $ Equivalent in January 2014 BTC: 808 BTC The then up-and-coming payment processor BIPS suffered a major breach in mid-November 2013, a month that saw numerous other companies shut down due to hacks. BIPS refused to refund creditors, justifying the loss as inevitable for a web wallet. BIPS made an attempt to continue business despite the hack. PicoStocks Hack Date: 2013-11-29 Victim: PicoStocks Perpetrator: Unknown Transactions of interest:[84] (#post_ref_83)
Equivalent in USD: 3009397 $ Equivalent in January 2014 BTC: 3680 BTC PicoStocks, a stock exchange using a novel means of circumventing legal regulation, reported that someone that previously had access to PicoStocks keys used them to defund both hot and cold wallets. Creditors were reportedly unaffected as, despite the magnitude of the loss, PicoStocks covered it completely. Sheep Marketplace Incident Date: 2013-12-02 Victim: Sheep Marketplace users Perpetrator: Official story blames user EBOOK101; suspicion of an inside job[85] (#post_ref_84) Transactions of interest: Disputed Amount: Estimate 5400 BTC[85] (#post_ref_84) Equivalent in USD: 4070923 $ Equivalent in January 2014 BTC: 4980 BTC Czech-based underground marketplace Sheep supposedly suffered a major breach causing the loss of 5400 BTC, which was passed down to its users. This official story is disputed, with many claiming the actual loss was far more severe. However, estimates of over 90000 BTC being stolen by the operator of Sheep were found to have accidentally tracked BTC-E internal wallet movements, thus discrediting this alternative explanation.[86] (#post_ref_85) Title: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses [5] Post by: dree12 on April 19, 2014, 01:57:53 AM Silk Road 2 Incident
NB: Not to be confused with the Silk Road Seizure. (#post_silk_road_seizure) Date: 2014-02-13 Victim: Silk Road 2 users Perpetrator: Official story[87] (#post_ref_86) blames three attackers; many suspect an inside job. Transactions of interest: See official statement (http://www.reddit.com/r/DarkNetMarkets/comments/1xtqty/sr_has_been_hacked/^sr2_official). Amount: Estimate 4400 BTC[88] (#post_ref_87) Equivalent in USD: 3624866 $ Equivalent in January 2014 BTC: 4400 BTC Defcon, an administrator at underground marketplace Silk Road 2 (not to be confused with Silk Road), noticed that funds held for the escrow service were stolen in February 2014. “Transaction malleability”, an issue with the Bitcoin protocol at the time that also affected some other services, was blamed for the theft.[87] (#post_ref_86) Others note that transaction malleability is unlikely to result in coins being stolen and belive the Silk Road 2 incident to be an inside job. Several months after the incident, it was reported that Silk Road 2 is paying users back with funds earned from commissions[89] (#post_ref_88) 2014 Mt. Gox Collapse Date: Ongoing Victim: Mt. Gox and users Perpetrator: Unknown Amount: Estimate 850000 BTC[90] (#post_ref_89) Equivalent in USD: 700258171 $ Equivalent in January 2014 BTC: 850000 BTC Formerly the largest Bitcoin exchange, Mt. Gox was the center of the Bitcoin economy for three years. Unfortunately, the codebase behind the exchange was out of date and poorly-written. The exchange had already suffered a series of security breaches, some publicized and likely many kept secret. In February 2014, Mt. Gox announced that it was bankrupt. Perhaps 750000 BTC of customer funds have not been returned. More information will be added as the story develops. Fallout from this theft includes the collapse of Cyprus-based Neo & Bee, which blamed its losses on Mt. Gox. Flexcoin Theft Date: 2014-03-02 Victim: Flexcoin and users Perpetrator: IP address 207.12.89.117[91] (#post_ref_90) Transactions of interest:[91] (#post_ref_90)
Equivalent in USD: 738240 $ Equivalent in January 2014 BTC: 896 BTC Canadian-based Bitcoin “bank” Flexcoin reported a security breach causing the loss of most hot wallet funds, thanks to a race condition.[91] (#post_ref_90) Creditors were not reimbursed. CryptoRush Theft Date: 2014-03-11[93] (#post_ref_92) Victim: CryptoRush (alternative cryptocurrency exchange) and users Perpetrator: Identified as an “IP from Ukraine”. Amount: About 950 BTC[93] (#post_ref_92) Equivalent in USD: 782641 $ Equivalent in January 2014 BTC: 950 BTC Cryptocurrency exchange cryptorush.in suffered a security breach leading the the loss of almost 1000 BTC and a significant amount of other cryptocurrencies such as Litecoin. The exchange attempted to continue operations and withhold its insolvency from its users. Some days later, it created its own propietary cryptocurrency, purporting to pay dividends to owners. The exchange later suffered another bug leading to the loss of cryptocurrency balances in Blackcoin. A support employee later leaked details of the theft and the attempts to cover it up.[93] (#post_ref_92) MintPal Incident Date: 2014-10-14[94] (#post_ref_93) Victim: MintPal users Perpetrator: Likely “Alex Green”[95] (#post_ref_94) Amount: Lower bound 3894.49250000 BTC[94] (#post_ref_93) Equivalent in USD: 3208412 $ Equivalent in January 2014 BTC: 3890 BTC Cryptocurrency exchange MintPal was abruptly shut down by Moopay executive “Alex Green”, which may be a pseudonym. The cold wallet was allegedly emptied by Green. Title: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses [6] Post by: dree12 on April 19, 2014, 01:58:23 AM This post is reserved.
Title: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses [7] Post by: dree12 on April 19, 2014, 01:58:37 AM This post is reserved.
Title: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses [8] Post by: dree12 on April 19, 2014, 01:58:53 AM Thefts not included
Some thefts in Bitcoin's history, although severe and damaging to Bitcoin users, did not involve the theft of over one thousand bitcoins. These thefts are listed below.
Minor but notable thefts Other thefts are minor, but are unique in some manner (for example, interesting methods or a first of its kind).
Too small The thefts below, based on all available estimates, are absolutely below the requisite margin and cannot be included on this list.
Borderline theft The thefts below are near the requisite margin for the time that it took place, but all or practically all reasonable estimates put it below. New estimates may move these thefts to the main list.
On watch This section is reserved for possible thefts and scams that bear mentioning. It is not an endorsement, and the presence on this list does not imply a scam.
References & Footnotes
Credits Thanks to the following who generously wrote commentary:
Thanks to the following who suggested or clarified incidents:
Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: dree12 on April 19, 2014, 02:11:17 AM So, an update from the last thread:
Thank you to those who kept me updated! Things left on the backlog waiting for more research:
(By the way: Feel free to reply now; the number of posts reserved is plenty.) Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: iluvpie60 on April 19, 2014, 04:29:57 AM So, an update from the last thread:
Thank you to those who kept me updated! Things left on the backlog waiting for more research:
(By the way: Feel free to reply now; the number of posts reserved is plenty.) I am not sure a forum is the best place to display this much information, especially if you are going to update it with a ton more stuff. Although it is organized, it is cluttered in the limited format that you can post on here, IE buttons/links to other pages, or tabs for each year ETC. Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: dree12 on April 19, 2014, 05:01:09 PM So, an update from the last thread:
Thank you to those who kept me updated! Things left on the backlog waiting for more research:
(By the way: Feel free to reply now; the number of posts reserved is plenty.) I am not sure a forum is the best place to display this much information, especially if you are going to update it with a ton more stuff. Although it is organized, it is cluttered in the limited format that you can post on here, IE buttons/links to other pages, or tabs for each year ETC. For now, a forum post is good enough. The markup is written in an intermediate language though so it can be compiled to some other format if necessary in the future. Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: malevolent on April 29, 2014, 06:44:03 PM You forgot about Bitcoin to Cash:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=344143 100 BTC @ 800 USD/BTC =~~ $80k. I think Labcoin could also be added (another scam by Alberto Armandi), but I haven't followed it closely, so have no idea how much money is missing (7500 BTC?). Also, ActiveMining (10k BTC?) and maybe COG could be on the list. Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: CoinHeavy on April 30, 2014, 11:46:27 AM Incredible history you have compiled. Many thanks for sharing.
Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: IIOII on April 30, 2014, 12:51:25 PM You forgot about Bitcoin to Cash: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=344143 100 BTC @ 800 USD/BTC =~~ $80k. I think Labcoin could also be added (another scam by Alberto Armandi), but I haven't followed it closely, so have no idea how much money is missing (7500 BTC?). Also, ActiveMining (10k BTC?) and maybe COG could be on the list. This and you forgot the bitdaytrade-scam (several thousand BTC), also run by alleged serial scammer Alberto Armandi (Carbonia, Italy (Sardinia); now possibly HK/China). As a starting point: labcoin: http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1ncckq/labcoin_has_been_outed_as_a_scam_run_by_notorious/ bitdaytrade: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=88803.0 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=93445.0 Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: FFrost on May 01, 2014, 03:08:33 PM Very Interesting read. Opened my eyes a bit!
Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: C.Steven on May 01, 2014, 03:12:05 PM Thanks OP for creating and maintaining this list.
People could have avoided the loss in many cases if they don't store their bitcoin on sites. Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: beescrow on May 01, 2014, 03:12:30 PM You should also give the aproximate value in USD at the time those bitcoins were stolen. Because now they're obviously worth a lot, but back in 2011/2010, they weren't worth nearly as much as they are now...
Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: MegaHustlr on May 01, 2014, 04:08:35 PM You should also give the aproximate value in USD at the time those bitcoins were stolen. Because now they're obviously worth a lot, but back in 2011/2010, they weren't worth nearly as much as they are now... I think he did do this no? He listed the value of it back then. Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: C.Steven on May 01, 2014, 04:22:27 PM You should also give the aproximate value in USD at the time those bitcoins were stolen. Because now they're obviously worth a lot, but back in 2011/2010, they weren't worth nearly as much as they are now... I think he did do this no? He listed the value of it back then. Yup, there is a section "List of events by USD equivalent of mBTC at time of theft" though with a note "NB: This section is outdated.". Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: dree12 on May 02, 2014, 09:02:18 PM You forgot about Bitcoin to Cash: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=344143 100 BTC @ 800 USD/BTC =~~ $80k. I think Labcoin could also be added (another scam by Alberto Armandi), but I haven't followed it closely, so have no idea how much money is missing (7500 BTC?). Also, ActiveMining (10k BTC?) and maybe COG could be on the list. You forgot about Bitcoin to Cash: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=344143 100 BTC @ 800 USD/BTC =~~ $80k. I think Labcoin could also be added (another scam by Alberto Armandi), but I haven't followed it closely, so have no idea how much money is missing (7500 BTC?). Also, ActiveMining (10k BTC?) and maybe COG could be on the list. This and you forgot the bitdaytrade-scam (several thousand BTC), also run by alleged serial scammer Alberto Armandi (Carbonia, Italy (Sardinia); now possibly HK/China). As a starting point: labcoin: http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1ncckq/labcoin_has_been_outed_as_a_scam_run_by_notorious/ bitdaytrade: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=88803.0 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=93445.0 Thank you. I've put these on the new backlog. Updating the lists is another priority. I should be able to finish that this weekend. Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: professorXY on May 02, 2014, 11:00:04 PM One of the most useful posts on this forum. thanks you a lot. I'll keep them in mind
Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: dree12 on May 03, 2014, 12:26:49 AM You should also give the aproximate value in USD at the time those bitcoins were stolen. Because now they're obviously worth a lot, but back in 2011/2010, they weren't worth nearly as much as they are now... I think he did do this no? He listed the value of it back then. Yup, there is a section "List of events by USD equivalent of mBTC at time of theft" though with a note "NB: This section is outdated.". That list used to be updated manually, which became too much of a burden. I have almost finished a script to do it for me, which saves a lot of time. I will get an updated list of events by USD up over this weekend. Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: buzybit on May 03, 2014, 12:32:31 AM very usefull indeed
we all have to know about these! Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: icet208 on May 03, 2014, 07:43:52 AM very nice job OP..this kinda things drag bitcoin down..especially hacks..
Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: dree12 on May 06, 2014, 12:56:34 AM Along with the planned severity list upgrade, there has been some reexamination of past thefts and some associated re-evaluations based on information not available at the time.
Reanalysis is taking a while so I have only done to mid-2012 so far. The list is hence updated only until that time, which also means that the new severity list is incomplete. I will prioritize completing the reanalysis so the severity list can be completed. Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: RockHound on May 06, 2014, 04:41:25 AM Spent a good hour reading through list and associated articles - Many thanks OP for compiling these events in bitcoin history
Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: wemine on May 15, 2014, 03:27:42 AM The stickers look shocking, we must protect their bitcoins, thank you for your great work.
Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: dree12 on May 15, 2014, 08:36:56 PM The stickers look shocking, we must protect their bitcoins, thank you for your great work. Stickers? Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: Davis14 on May 15, 2014, 11:45:01 PM Man you really put some work on this. I wonder how long it took.
Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: dree12 on May 17, 2014, 03:53:27 AM Man you really put some work on this. I wonder how long it took. It's safe to say that maintaining the list is far more difficult than making or expanding the list. There is sometimes new information about thefts that happen years ago, and keeping the list up to date in that regard does take quite a while. I guess you could say the list's time complexity is O(t2). Though I'm finding ways to optimize it, including the new software that generates rankings for me (so that's one fewer thing to update). Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: AtomicDoge on May 17, 2014, 10:18:22 AM Due to anonymous nature of bitcoin it has to work in conjunction with a reputation system. Tony exploited his reputation as a #1 seller, cashed in on his reputation, so to speak, and fled. It goes to show that even reputation systems aren't foolproof if the person has enough incentive.
Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: AtomicDoge on May 17, 2014, 10:25:00 AM The signs that Tony76 was a scammer were obvious. His feedback suffered tremendously, before the scam. Heroin dealers on SR have a short shelf life, they tend to deliver for a few months and once they can't put up the buy money anymore, their habit gets them.
Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: AtomicDoge on May 17, 2014, 10:31:06 AM I don't do heroin but I was amazed at how this seemingly innocent canadian/middle eastern dude was able to garner such high praise, while his stats were slipping the whole time. I would look for a pakistani guy in Montreal driving a lexus with the plate TONYBTC on it. Je me souviens.
Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: funnynews on June 16, 2014, 01:25:48 PM Big scam in NXT hundreds of BTC stolen with a one post:
https://nxtforum.org/news-and-announcements/incredible-opportunity!/ (https://nxtforum.org/news-and-announcements/incredible-opportunity!/) Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: NotLambchop on June 17, 2014, 03:34:11 PM Thread deserves a sticky. Thanks for keeping it updated.
Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: freedomno1 on June 18, 2014, 07:43:00 AM So, an update from the last thread:
Thank you to those who kept me updated! Things left on the backlog waiting for more research:
(By the way: Feel free to reply now; the number of posts reserved is plenty.) Since it said to feel free to reply I will take advantage of that Also I didn't notice this thread got moved until Malevolent connected it with the Hall of Shame Thread Hopefully you won't need the whole 8 posts for 10 to 20 years. That said observing this thread and sigh like it or not contributing since scams are always prevalent in the Bitcoin world Adding a few to this list Basic Mining https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=130982.0 Not quite sure how many Bitcoins exactly were lost possibly 16000 but there is a shareholder list for a lawsuit on this at least. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=130982.msg6046183#msg6046183 From the Hall of Shame saw a few that were not listed as well so they may fit under losses https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=651315.0 There should be a few more in here but of various sizes https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=643178.msg7181923#msg7181923 BTCQuick https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=159716.msg1688643#msg1688643 Icedrill https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=269216.0 Hashfast https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=262052.0 http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/05/bitcoin-miner-startup-hashfast-strikes-deal-with-creditors-for-now/ Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: dree12 on June 25, 2014, 09:52:26 PM So, an update from the last thread:
Thank you to those who kept me updated! Things left on the backlog waiting for more research:
(By the way: Feel free to reply now; the number of posts reserved is plenty.) Since it said to feel free to reply I will take advantage of that Also I didn't notice this thread got moved until Malevolent connected it with the Hall of Shame Thread Hopefully you won't need the whole 8 posts for 10 to 20 years. That said observing this thread and sigh like it or not contributing since scams are always prevalent in the Bitcoin world Adding a few to this list Basic Mining https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=130982.0 Not quite sure how many Bitcoins exactly were lost possibly 16000 but there is a shareholder list for a lawsuit on this at least. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=130982.msg6046183#msg6046183 From the Hall of Shame saw a few that were not listed as well so they may fit under losses https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=651315.0 There should be a few more in here but of various sizes https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=643178.msg7181923#msg7181923 BTCQuick https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=159716.msg1688643#msg1688643 Icedrill https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=269216.0 Hashfast https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=262052.0 http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/05/bitcoin-miner-startup-hashfast-strikes-deal-with-creditors-for-now/ Thanks. I'll catch up on these as fast as possibly, hopefully today or tomorrow. Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: dree12 on June 27, 2014, 01:09:21 AM So, an update from the last thread:
Thank you to those who kept me updated! Things left on the backlog waiting for more research:
(By the way: Feel free to reply now; the number of posts reserved is plenty.) Since it said to feel free to reply I will take advantage of that Also I didn't notice this thread got moved until Malevolent connected it with the Hall of Shame Thread Hopefully you won't need the whole 8 posts for 10 to 20 years. That said observing this thread and sigh like it or not contributing since scams are always prevalent in the Bitcoin world Adding a few to this list Basic Mining https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=130982.0 Not quite sure how many Bitcoins exactly were lost possibly 16000 but there is a shareholder list for a lawsuit on this at least. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=130982.msg6046183#msg6046183 From the Hall of Shame saw a few that were not listed as well so they may fit under losses https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=651315.0 There should be a few more in here but of various sizes https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=643178.msg7181923#msg7181923 BTCQuick https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=159716.msg1688643#msg1688643 Icedrill https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=269216.0 Hashfast https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=262052.0 http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/05/bitcoin-miner-startup-hashfast-strikes-deal-with-creditors-for-now/ Thanks. I'll catch up on these as fast as possibly, hopefully today or tomorrow. Just a quick update: There are still 17 items on the backlog. Not all qualify for inclusion, but I need to research all of them. I will finish processing them tomorrow. The progress on updating the severity lists (by automatically generating them) is almost done. This will be done for the current list by later tonight, and will hopefully be done for the updated backlog list by tomorrow. Edit: Severity lists are done! I forgot to remove the old USD list; I'll have that fixed in the next update. Mt. Gox is rated -1 because that's the temporary value I put in. Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: _Miracle on June 27, 2014, 02:33:47 AM Very interesting.
Is there one like this for mining equipment? Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: VeroPossumus on June 27, 2014, 02:48:48 AM This was really on point. Thank you for this post!
Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: dree12 on June 29, 2014, 05:29:26 PM As per usual, I am taking far longer than I should in finishing off the backlog. I am still working on it though and I will put up a partial or full update in the near future.
Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: Swordsoffreedom on July 12, 2014, 09:43:27 AM Geh this is sickening but here is one for the list
Hopefully Klee is able to get those coins back I was hacked (1170btc stolen) - 500btc max BOUNTY https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=686275.0 Klee's Theft 1170 ... not a Stephan Thomas or one of the other listed ones but still in 2014 v 2011 UPDATE May 13 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=686275.msg7816540#msg7816540 Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: jabo38 on July 12, 2014, 02:40:18 PM Geh this is sickening but here is one for the list Hopefully Klee is able to get those coins back I was hacked (1170btc stolen) - 500btc max BOUNTY https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=686275.0 Klee's Theft 1170 ... not a Stephan Thomas or one of the other listed ones but still in 2014 v 2011 By total amount in usd, it has to be in the top 10 I think. Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: JorgeStolfi on July 13, 2014, 01:47:59 AM Some random obs:
I have seen many references to Bitfunder and Intersango as two notable scams. Bitfunder and other ventures by @Ukyo were connectes to the Neo&Bee collapse. On thread about them: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=640717.0 An Intersango thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=323682.20 I think there was another one, can't find it now. The SheepMarketplace coins were tracked through tumblers etc. by volunteers for some time, but apparently they got tired so now the coins seem to be "lost in the crowd". There is a thread about LKETC, manufacturers of mining equipment, with claims that the controlling software that comes with the machines steals 10% of the mined coins: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=640717.0 Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: dree12 on July 13, 2014, 02:48:42 PM All the above on on the backlog now. I'll get around to updating the list as soon as possible.
Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: Swordsoffreedom on July 13, 2014, 07:38:14 PM All the above on on the backlog now. I'll get around to updating the list as soon as possible. Thanks partial update there have been negotiations so that one is on a standby for 36 days pending the hackers second payment https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=690353.msg7822795#msg7822795 Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: JorgeStolfi on July 15, 2014, 01:50:14 PM Another thread about a confirmed scam, CoinReturn:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=665833.0 I do not know whether the amount is sufficient to qualify for your list. Apologies if you already considered it and rejected it. Perhaps ypu should place on Page 1 a list with the names (only the names) of the incidents that are on your queue, or that you already looked into and rejected; so that readers can avoid suggesting them over and over again. Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: dree12 on July 15, 2014, 08:29:23 PM Another thread about a confirmed scam, CoinReturn: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=665833.0 I do not know whether the amount is sufficient to qualify for your list. Apologies if you already considered it and rejected it. Perhaps ypu should place on Page 1 a list with the names (only the names) of the incidents that are on your queue, or that you already looked into and rejected; so that readers can avoid suggesting them over and over again. Thanks, I've added this to the queue now. As I get through the backlog I'll make sure to keep a list of rejected incidents and post them somewhere. Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: allthingsluxury on July 15, 2014, 08:31:02 PM I knew there was a lot, but wow this is staggering once you stop and look at it.
Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: JorgeStolfi on July 15, 2014, 08:45:03 PM A small one that does not directly involve BTC except as a getaway vehicle, but is notable as illustrating a weakness of PoS coins:
Exchanges Bittrex and Bter apparently were the scene of two nearly simultaneous attacks on Navajo (NAV), a PoS altcoin. On Bittrex the attackers used a private mining network to double-spend almost 1 million NAV in the purchase of about 9 BTC, and withdrew the BTC: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=679791.msg7848188#msg7848188 Details on the Bter attack are not yet known: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=679791.msg7859494#msg7859494 Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: Timelord2067 on August 08, 2014, 01:39:45 PM If I'm permitted, can you add CoinEx.PW scam site - claimed earlier in 2014 to have had coins 'stolen' went off line for a few hours, came back for a few weeks, an 818 BTC pump of Moon coin occurred (I watched most of it happen) (and to a lesser extent Infinate Coin) some weeks later the site went off line with messages in their bitcointalk forum that there was a problem - site was off line for a few weeks then came back without explanation/announcement. Aspects of the site began to break down and after a few days it became apparent that neither of the two admins were online and some two months later, the site was taken down *however* some person's on the bitcointalk page claim to be still able to log into the coinex.pw site with (what appears to be a scam-within-a-scam) selling other alt coins for BTC out of the goodness of their hearts that they will somehow be able to recover the BTC from coinex.pw later is alluded to but no plausible explanation of how then can recover these funds.
If you read through early posts of "Captain Future" he at first ridicules coinex.pw then wants to become an admin, then he's left answering the questions when the other admin goes silent. ( @ erundook) Regards, Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: dree12 on August 08, 2014, 03:02:19 PM If I'm permitted, can you add CoinEx.PW scam site - claimed earlier in 2014 to have had coins 'stolen' went off line for a few hours, came back for a few weeks, an 818 BTC pump of Moon coin occurred (I watched most of it happen) (and to a lesser extent Infinate Coin) some weeks later the site went off line with messages in their bitcointalk forum that there was a problem - site was off line for a few weeks then came back without explanation/announcement. Aspects of the site began to break down and after a few days it became apparent that neither of the two admins were online and some two months later, the site was taken down *however* some person's on the bitcointalk page claim to be still able to log into the coinex.pw site with (what appears to be a scam-within-a-scam) selling other alt coins for BTC out of the goodness of their hearts that they will somehow be able to recover the BTC from coinex.pw later is alluded to but no plausible explanation of how then can recover these funds. If you read through early posts of "Captain Future" he at first ridicules coinex.pw then wants to become an admin, then he's left answering the questions when the other admin goes silent. ( @ erundook) Regards, I'll hopefully finish the update today. Stay tuned. Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: pandacoin on August 08, 2014, 03:17:52 PM You can add BitcoinLiveBets scammers, too. They ran after the World Cup final.
Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: dree12 on August 08, 2014, 05:44:17 PM Approximately half the backlog is done, though this half has been mostly rejected on account of being too small. These updates will not go live until I finish the whole backlog (excluding Mt. Gox, which is still awaiting more information), as updating this topic, which requires editing several posts, is not yet automated and is (to some degree) very repetitive work.
Changes:
Thanks to everyone who has contributed to the backlog! (It is worth noting that the backlog is coincidentally ordered roughly from least severe to most, so the latter half will consist of more interesting incidents.) Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: BowieMan on August 08, 2014, 06:46:31 PM Reading this list can really make you sick to the stomach. Or it can also show you how all the coins you've lost yourself are nothing compared to those really big heists. And even big names like "Klee" aren't safe from being scammed or robbed. A lot of well known Bitcoin people have also lost their money in the Gox fiasco!
Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: hdbuck on August 08, 2014, 07:55:09 PM very nice thread, appreciate the work thx. never forget.
ps: why the hell doesnt the 800k+ Gox lost coins are not #1 in the Top heist? Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: dree12 on August 08, 2014, 07:55:57 PM very nice thread, appreciate the work thx. never forget. ps: why the hell doesnt the 800k+ Gox lost coins are not #1 in the Top heist? Gox is a placeholder while I wait for more details to arise. They've been very hush-hush about it so far. I have gone through some more of the backlog.
Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: mrcashking on August 08, 2014, 09:56:17 PM Wait until the nigerian scammers learn about bitcoin if they haven't already. Scams are gonna get even uglier on that front.
Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: dree12 on August 12, 2014, 02:31:59 PM All this convices me that small exchanges will close down, unable to increase security. Even big ones will have their new "MtGox" once in a while. People eed to be educated and coins stored without the need to rely on third parties. I agree with you, as with the vast majority of Bitcoiners. But most leave one major point out, and this must be resolved before Bitcoin can be mainstream: If even a large exchange can't keep its coins safe, how can Joe Sixpack do it? There are plenty of stories about "Power Users" losing their bitcoins to theft or to some accident. The average user will not be so lucky: we can hardly expect Grandma to make backups, choose a strong password, and keep her computer malware-free. This must be addressed. Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: Spearmint on August 12, 2014, 03:39:28 PM was a great read thanks :o :o
Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: dree12 on August 12, 2014, 05:51:56 PM Partial update is up. I'll keep working on the full backlog and put up a full update soon.
Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: hikedoon on August 12, 2014, 09:24:50 PM This was well worth reading.
Thanks for taking the time to write this up. Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: oceans on August 12, 2014, 09:33:16 PM Still needing to read through a lot more of this but this is great that you have managed to compile such a great up to date list which will help many people especially if they are getting into bitcoin for the first time. I know many will appreciate this if they are just starting out but so will those who have been doing it a while but still need that heads up. Thanks for sharing.
Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: Mobius on August 12, 2014, 09:57:49 PM All this convices me that small exchanges will close down, unable to increase security. Even big ones will have their new "MtGox" once in a while. People eed to be educated and coins stored without the need to rely on third parties. Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses [4] Post by: dooglus on August 16, 2014, 06:18:24 PM Just Dice Incident Time: 2013-07-15 Victim: Just-Dice investors, Dooglus Suspect: Just-Dice.com user “celeste”, who claims he was hacked. Status: Bets rolled back. Amount: About 1300 BTC[62] (#post_ref_61) From the Just-Dice database of debits and credits: Mon Jul 15 15:09:58 2013 {"amount":1300.155,"address":"manual debit","txid":"","eid":22234} Tue Jul 16 07:53:03 2013 {"amount":1300.155,"note":"manual credit","eid":23310} ie. I debited his account late, after he had already lost the balance (taking his balance negative, in the hope he would deposit to clear the debt), and then later re-credited it after rolling back the bets. So the amount in question is exactly 1300.155 BTC. Edit: here's the transaction where I paid him out but didn't debit the database: https://blockchain.info/tx/0aa67253b162c6ddae04bbc5b01a0283591a74288cdd1c2073a3181ec7e124da 1ChELp7ynrwpktFJvRgrBECWxWWg2Mxu72 - (Spent) 1,300.1549 BTC That's 1300.155 BTC minus the standard tx fee of 0.0001 BTC. Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses [4] Post by: dree12 on August 16, 2014, 06:32:35 PM Just Dice Incident Time: 2013-07-15 Victim: Just-Dice investors, Dooglus Suspect: Just-Dice.com user “celeste”, who claims he was hacked. Status: Bets rolled back. Amount: About 1300 BTC[62] (#post_ref_61) From the Just-Dice database of debits and credits: Mon Jul 15 15:09:58 2013 {"amount":1300.155,"address":"manual debit","txid":"","eid":22234} Tue Jul 16 07:53:03 2013 {"amount":1300.155,"note":"manual credit","eid":23310} ie. I debited his account late, after he had already lost the balance (taking his balance negative, in the hope he would deposit to clear the debt), and then later re-credited it after rolling back the bets. So the amount in question is exactly 1300.155 BTC. Thank you! I have corrected this locally and the changes will go live along with a few more backlog entries hopefully later this week. Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses [4] Post by: dooglus on August 16, 2014, 06:44:01 PM Thank you! I have corrected this locally and the changes will go live along with a few more backlog entries hopefully later this week. I edited my post around the same time you were replying to it, adding a link to the actual blockchain transaction. I don't know if you saw my edit, but guess you will now. Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: zen2 on August 16, 2014, 09:51:38 PM Much much much Money hack and Lose People Money
Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: wzb422 on August 16, 2014, 11:39:35 PM thanks for your sharing
Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: heybigboy1 on August 17, 2014, 12:22:17 AM I remember like six of these. Sad to see and know people go that low to do this..
Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: Timelord2067 on September 01, 2014, 03:46:50 PM Wait until the nigerian scammers learn about bitcoin if they haven't already. Scams are gonna get even uglier on that front. This will keep the Nigerians searching for new scams... Quote BBC News - Nigeria launches national electronic ID cards http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-28970411 Although I don't fancy the size of the card they have to carry around. :) Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: EndlessStory on September 01, 2014, 03:55:21 PM Thanks for the alerts. This list will come useful. Bookmarked it for future use.
Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: ProfMac on September 01, 2014, 04:37:46 PM Aspects of the site began to break down and after a few days it became apparent that neither of the two admins were online and some two months later, the site was taken down *however* some person's on the bitcointalk page claim to be still able to log into the coinex.pw site with (what appears to be a scam-within-a-scam) selling other alt coins for BTC out of the goodness of their hearts that they will somehow be able to recover the BTC from coinex.pw later is alluded to but no plausible explanation of how then can recover these funds. It is likely that I am the person Timelord2067 is referring to in this comment. If so, there are some things that are distorted beyond truthfulness in his presentation. Regardless of who he is referring to, these are the actions that I took. 1. I pointed an Avalon mining rig to mine BTE on coinex before the theft announcement. 2. Following the announcement that 50% of the funds were replaced, I continued to point my miner at coinex. 3. Eventually, the BTE pool, wallet, deposits and withdrawals went dark. 4. I searched and found that the DEM pool, wallet, and withdrawals were still functional. 5. I pointed my miner to the DEM pool. I tested withdrawals. 6. I announced that I could mine and withdraw, and I posted TXiD documentation to the troll box and the bitcointalk forums. 7. I reasoned that those people who were panicked would welcome the opportunity to trade their coins for DEM and pay a premium price for them. 8. I reasoned that the TXiD would allow people to verify that the funds were still available in the hot wallet. 9. I replenished the DEM wallet many times, both through mining in the coinex pool, and also in DEM deposits to my coinex deposit address. 10. I announced the TXiD that documented these deposits, at first to individuals who registered on my Google survey, and later in the coinex troll box. 11. In this process, I acquired a BTC balance on coinex, and I allowed interested individuals to withdraw DEM. I sold through limit orders, and others in the community were free to offer their own DEM at a more attractive price than mine. 12. I did not sell directly to any individuals, and I did not take any action that required users to trust me. Everything was documented at the time of announcement. All of the above actions are completely above-board actions in the alt-coin community. I mined, sold on the exchange, and attempted to make some profit at a level of risk that was acceptable to me. All my actions were honorable. Many people reported in the troll-box that they had successfully withdrawn DEM following my efforts and announcements. Timelord began a campaign of FUD while the DEM coinex wallet was still working. I do not understand his motivation. I don't understand how he has been harmed, or believes he or anyone else could have been harmed. I believe that by crying scam that he caused some people to hesitate and lose funds when coinex shut down, when they could have cashed out through DEM. I believe that my actions were directly helpful to others, and gave me the possibility of high return for high risk. While I don't think it is proper for him to ask for any explanation on how I hoped to profit, I did give such an explanation many times and it is completely inaccurate for him to say otherwise. My belief was that the exchange would re-open and my trading would turn out to be very profitable. I would appreciate if Timelord would clarify that he does not mean me when he speaks of a scam within a scam. Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: Mars not Moon on September 01, 2014, 05:09:13 PM That's a very big list. Thanks a lot , bookmarking it now.
It will definitely prove very useful in trades. Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: Timelord2067 on September 04, 2014, 02:11:14 AM If I'm permitted, can you add CoinEx.PW scam site - claimed earlier in 2014 to have had coins 'stolen' went off line for a few hours, came back for a few weeks, an 818 BTC pump of Moon coin occurred (I watched most of it happen) (and to a lesser extent Infinate Coin) some weeks later the site went off line with messages in their bitcointalk forum that there was a problem - site was off line for a few weeks then came back without explanation/announcement. Aspects of the site began to break down and after a few days it became apparent that neither of the two admins were online and some two months later, the site was taken down *however* some person's on the bitcointalk page claim to be still able to log into the coinex.pw site with (what appears to be a scam-within-a-scam) selling other alt coins for BTC out of the goodness of their hearts that they will somehow be able to recover the BTC from coinex.pw later is alluded to but no plausible explanation of how then can recover these funds. If you read through early posts of "Captain Future" he at first ridicules coinex.pw then wants to become an admin, then he's left answering the questions when the other admin goes silent. ( @ erundook) Regards, Follow-up to the CoinEX.PW scam within a scam where persons were selling other coins for BTC when *no*one* on the exchange could withdraw BTC in the last days... https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=265277.msg8640426#msg8640426 Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: dree12 on October 03, 2014, 09:14:24 PM I have seen this in the news recently:
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/chinese-bitcoin-exchange-huobi-loses-5000-btc-1-2m-blunder-1467192 I will take some time over the weekend to do some more research and finally post a (long-delayed) list update. Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: malevolent on October 19, 2014, 04:48:07 PM Mintpal https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=824211.0
Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: BittBurger on October 19, 2014, 07:42:00 PM This fucking cracks me up:
https://vircurex.com/welcome/ann_reserved.html LTC paid back in the month of August: 15. Total LTC still owed to customers: 124,719 This means Vircurex will pay everyone back by the year 2706 (692 years from now). Fucking crooks. Note that there are no numbers for September or October. Oh, by the way: "Earn interest on BTC, LTC and PPC account balances We now pay interest on BTC, LTC and PPC account balances, they are paid multiple times every day. Check out the help for details. " They're now paying interest to other people! That makes total sense! -B- Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: Window2Wall on October 19, 2014, 11:28:38 PM This fucking cracks me up: Any time that someone offers to pay interest on your crypto balance, it will almost certainly be some kind of scam. For the most part, exchanges have no way of making money off of you simply holding your bitcoin/crypto currency on their exchange so they have no reason to pay you to do so (other then the fact they want to give people incentives to hold money on their exchange for when they eventually run away with customer money)https://vircurex.com/welcome/ann_reserved.html LTC paid back in the month of August: 15. Total LTC still owed to customers: 124,719 This means Vircurex will pay everyone back by the year 2706 (692 years from now). Fucking crooks. Note that there are no numbers for September or October. Oh, by the way: "Earn interest on BTC, LTC and PPC account balances We now pay interest on BTC, LTC and PPC account balances, they are paid multiple times every day. Check out the help for details. " They're now paying interest to other people! That makes total sense! -B- Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: magic ice on October 20, 2014, 11:22:05 AM I read about some of this incidents. I wonder where are these people (who did it) right now.
Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: Q7 on October 20, 2014, 11:58:38 AM Though the list is interesting and informative, it can actually puts bitcoin in a negative spotlight. It will give an impression that holding on to btc is not safe but actually is not true which are all based on our own due diligence.
Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: NotLambchop on October 20, 2014, 12:26:47 PM Though the list is interesting and informative, it can actually puts bitcoin in a negative spotlight. It will give an impression that holding on to btc is not safe but actually is not true which are all based on our own due diligence. Lol. Judging by Bitcoin's premiere securities exchange, Havelock Investments, all Bitcoin businesses either lose money honestly or run away. From all the "securities" listed, not a single one proved to be profitable. Not a one. Including Havelock itself. https://www.havelockinvestments.com/fund.php?symbol=HIF ~Happy Investing! Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: freedomno1 on October 27, 2014, 04:00:52 AM Adding Mintpal to the list
Amount of Bitcoins is 3700 according to article https://blockchain.info/address/17ztgkcaZbs4VFrAswMQGvnNDEtn47rsmu http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/oct/23/british-serial-entrepreneur-missing-bitcoin-apparently-stolen British serial entrepreneur missing as $1.4m bitcoin is apparently stolen Moolah has gone bust amid questions of its ownership and business practices Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: Rewap on October 27, 2014, 05:24:39 AM Though the list is interesting and informative, it can actually puts bitcoin in a negative spotlight. It will give an impression that holding on to btc is not safe but actually is not true which are all based on our own due diligence. And why is that? For me, it just makes bitcoin more usable for everyone. Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: erik777 on October 27, 2014, 05:28:49 AM Though the list is interesting and informative, it can actually puts bitcoin in a negative spotlight. It will give an impression that holding on to btc is not safe but actually is not true which are all based on our own due diligence. Perhaps we need a thread on dollar heists, thefts, scams and losses. http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/law-lets-irs-seize-accounts-on-suspicion-no-crime-required/ar-BBbbfW3?ocid=mailsignout (http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/law-lets-irs-seize-accounts-on-suspicion-no-crime-required/ar-BBbbfW3?ocid=mailsignout) Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: JorgeStolfi on October 27, 2014, 11:29:54 AM Perhaps we need a thread on dollar heists, thefts, scams and losses. Sure. Keep denying or minimizing the theft/scam problem, that is a wonderful way to build public confidence. At least 10% of all the bitcoins in existence must be in possession of thieves and scammers (the MtGOX "theft" alone took 5%). Only a couple of thieves have been caught and prosecuted. Few if any of the bitcoins that were stolen, embezzled, or obtained by fraudulent means have been returned to their legitimate owners. There is no evidence that such crimes are diminishing. Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: Zackgeno96 on October 28, 2014, 01:10:27 PM add mintpal scam to the list i've lost 10+ btc and are stuck on mintpal =-/
Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: I_IZ_CEO on November 07, 2014, 03:32:11 AM One of the best reads on bitcointalk. Thanks for updating it and it should be a must read for all newbs.
Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: bluemountain on November 08, 2014, 11:58:05 PM I haven't seen any specific numbers as of how much bitcoin was seized as part of the SR2 seizure however it would probably make the list.
Also SR2 was apparently hacked late this summer to the tune of 1,600 BTC which had previously been unreported (AFAIK) Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: jabo38 on November 09, 2014, 02:05:19 AM Id like to know the fate of the sr2 coins too.
My guess is the admin learnt enough from the past failures of others to hide and store them better. Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: JorgeStolfi on November 09, 2014, 02:29:16 AM Id like to know the fate of the sr2 coins too. My guess is the admin learnt enough from the past failures of others to hide and store them better. Reports say that the FBI had infiltrated his site a year ago. Now guess again. ;DTitle: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: dontCAREhair on November 10, 2014, 01:30:14 AM Id like to know the fate of the sr2 coins too. My guess is the admin learnt enough from the past failures of others to hide and store them better. Reports say that the FBI had infiltrated his site a year ago. Now guess again. ;DI do agree that Blake certainly did not learn any lessons from the downfall of SR1 as he made much worse mistakes Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: dree12 on November 16, 2014, 12:23:29 AM BASIC-MINING and MintPal have been added. Preliminary estimates for the Mt. Gox loss are up too. I'm still behind on the backlog though; hopefully I can get a few more updates in before my schedule tightens up again.
Huobi has been in the news. I'm not sure if this is an actual theft or a misunderstanding. Can any Chinese users help clear this up? I also plan to move from January 2014 BTC to a more recent benchmark, probably July 2014 BTC (this is better psychologically, since many of us don't remember what the price was in January). This will hopefully go smoothly. Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: Phrenico on December 01, 2014, 03:39:59 PM What about the two relatively recent dice sites that absconded with investor dunds, Dice Ninja and Dice Bitcoin?
Surprised they aren't here, because they seem to meet the criteria for inclusion. Anyway, great record OP. Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: dree12 on December 03, 2014, 09:42:25 PM What about the two relatively recent dice sites that absconded with investor dunds, Dice Ninja and Dice Bitcoin? Surprised they aren't here, because they seem to meet the criteria for inclusion. Anyway, great record OP. Thanks, noted. They may show up in one of the next updates, which will hopefully not take too long. Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: scarsbergholden on December 04, 2014, 11:53:12 PM What about the two relatively recent dice sites that absconded with investor dunds, Dice Ninja and Dice Bitcoin? Surprised they aren't here, because they seem to meet the criteria for inclusion. Anyway, great record OP. Thanks, noted. They may show up in one of the next updates, which will hopefully not take too long. Also there is not 100% evidence that they actually scammed, although the evidence against them is very strong Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: dree12 on January 05, 2015, 09:50:06 PM There's some Bitstamp drama right now. In particular this address seems to contain stolen coins.
https://blockchain.info/address/1L2JsXHPMYuAa9ugvHGLwkdstCPUDemNCf Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: Netzer on January 06, 2015, 12:25:35 AM It's a very useful resource for noobs, thanks!
Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: freedomno1 on January 06, 2015, 05:40:32 AM There's some Bitstamp drama right now. In particular this address seems to contain stolen coins. https://blockchain.info/address/1L2JsXHPMYuAa9ugvHGLwkdstCPUDemNCf Updating with some additional information to the blockchain address http://techcrunch.com/2015/01/05/bitstamp-bitcoin-exchange-hack/ Bitstamp customers can rest assured that their bitcoins held with us as prior to temporary suspension of services on January 5th (at 9am UTC) are completely safe and will be honored in full. On January 4th, some of Bitstamp’s operational wallets were compromised, resulting in a loss of less than 19,000 BTC. Upon learning of the breach, we immediately notified all customers that they should no longer make deposits to previously issued bitcoin deposit addresses. As an additional security measure, we suspended our systems while we fully investigate the incident and actively engage with law enforcement officials. As an aside it makes the top 3 (Not the best start to 2015) Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: altcoin hitler on January 06, 2015, 06:15:04 AM ad coinex to the list! https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=265277.0
Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: Willisius on January 06, 2015, 07:14:53 AM There's some Bitstamp drama right now. In particular this address seems to contain stolen coins. https://blockchain.info/address/1L2JsXHPMYuAa9ugvHGLwkdstCPUDemNCf Updating with some additional information to the blockchain address http://techcrunch.com/2015/01/05/bitstamp-bitcoin-exchange-hack/ Bitstamp customers can rest assured that their bitcoins held with us as prior to temporary suspension of services on January 5th (at 9am UTC) are completely safe and will be honored in full. On January 4th, some of Bitstamp’s operational wallets were compromised, resulting in a loss of less than 19,000 BTC. Upon learning of the breach, we immediately notified all customers that they should no longer make deposits to previously issued bitcoin deposit addresses. As an additional security measure, we suspended our systems while we fully investigate the incident and actively engage with law enforcement officials. As an aside it makes the top 3 (Not the best start to 2015) Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: LiteCoinGuy on January 06, 2015, 07:51:56 AM good list, thanks for updating.
(unfortunately the Paycoin / Paybase Scam is excluded :-[ ) Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: asdlolciterquit on January 06, 2015, 11:49:48 AM There's some Bitstamp drama right now. In particular this address seems to contain stolen coins. https://blockchain.info/address/1L2JsXHPMYuAa9ugvHGLwkdstCPUDemNCf Updating with some additional information to the blockchain address http://techcrunch.com/2015/01/05/bitstamp-bitcoin-exchange-hack/ Bitstamp customers can rest assured that their bitcoins held with us as prior to temporary suspension of services on January 5th (at 9am UTC) are completely safe and will be honored in full. On January 4th, some of Bitstamp’s operational wallets were compromised, resulting in a loss of less than 19,000 BTC. Upon learning of the breach, we immediately notified all customers that they should no longer make deposits to previously issued bitcoin deposit addresses. As an additional security measure, we suspended our systems while we fully investigate the incident and actively engage with law enforcement officials. As an aside it makes the top 3 (Not the best start to 2015) it's too early becouse we don't have our money back yet. Really hope that list on first post don't need to be updated with this :( Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: newIndia on January 06, 2015, 11:52:21 AM good list, thanks for updating. (unfortunately the Paycoin / Paybase Scam is excluded :-[ ) PB mining and hashie scams are excluded as well... Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: flipstyle on January 06, 2015, 01:21:51 PM I was out the loop for about a month and a half.
Wow, did not realize Mintpal had gone the scam route as well. Amazing. I thought they were the one and only true trustable exchange since they had info and not an anonymous server domain registration. But I guess that doesn't matter? Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: dree12 on January 06, 2015, 09:36:07 PM Thanks to everyone who has mentioned something. I am aware that coverage of 2014 is very incomplete, and hope to expand it soon. Once the Bitstamp incident becomes more clear I will put up an update including it at least.
Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: Guido on January 07, 2015, 02:02:30 PM amazing work by op
any whales floating by should send him a btc tip for his hard work and dilligence imo Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: GreekBitcoin on January 07, 2015, 02:47:42 PM There was a theft from poloniex almost a year ago. A percentage of BTC was stolen. So poloniex subtracted from everyone's balances the percentage and finally payed back after some months all the coins from the fees.
I am just writing this in case you are interested and want to research it more. Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: neo1947 on January 09, 2015, 09:26:33 PM great job many thanks.
Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: dree12 on January 09, 2015, 09:28:08 PM There was a theft from poloniex almost a year ago. A percentage of BTC was stolen. So poloniex subtracted from everyone's balances the percentage and finally payed back after some months all the coins from the fees. I am just writing this in case you are interested and want to research it more. The amount stolen (77 BTC) was below the cutoff, so this won't be included. A cutoff provides an objective way to include or exclude thefts. Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: freedomno1 on January 10, 2015, 01:38:43 AM The ones that are hard to list are scams and ponzis that may meet the cutoff but a fixed value can't be determined
Example Hashprofit ran off with some coins recently and were a HYIP for mining That said how many people bought into the scam is another question entirely and the amounts stolen that said I put this here as a pending note while trying to see if it meets minimum requirements. http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2qpao3/hashprofit_is_down_ddos_attack_or_scam/ https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=905627.msg10048539#msg10048539 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=908625.0 Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: freedombit on January 11, 2015, 06:49:48 AM A quick visualization of the data:
http://ibin.co/1nkFAeIeEb3j This is a great list to maintain. I predict that we will see the number of heists increasing, but the size of the heists shrinking over time; simply a matter of decentralization. At least until adoption is totally saturated - at which point it can go either direction. No more too big to fail. ***A shout out to Dree12 for supply the data that went into this chart.*** Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: freedombit on January 11, 2015, 06:51:52 AM There are three heists that stand out in a big way. What is the common thread? ;)
Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: carl_sagan on January 12, 2015, 04:41:38 AM I just wanted to say, really amazing job putting this together. I am impressed with how thorough and detailed it is.
Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: khai42 on January 16, 2015, 07:45:41 AM A quick visualization of the data: http://ibin.co/1nkFAeIeEb3j This is a great list to maintain. I predict that we will see the number of heists increasing, but the size of the heists shrinking over time; simply a matter of decentralization. At least until adoption is totally saturated - at which point it can go either direction. No more too big to fail. ***A shout out to Dree12 for supply the data that went into this chart.*** Nice graph...but shouldn't this be plotted on a log scale? :D Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: Baitty on January 16, 2015, 12:34:26 PM I read that the bitstamp money loss was far less than reported anyone can back this up?
Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: mayax on January 16, 2015, 03:58:39 PM I read that the bitstamp money loss was far less than reported anyone can back this up? https://blockchain.info/address/1L2JsXHPMYuAa9ugvHGLwkdstCPUDemNCf they lost 19,000 BTC do not count the other 1000 BTC that you see now. many stupids are STILL sending btc to that hacked address ;D ;D ;D ;D Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: shmoula on January 28, 2015, 11:45:40 AM ESECURITY S.A. - KODDOS - CRYPTO TRADE
Crypto trade announced its closure two days ago, without any warning or notification about problems to its shareholders, which caused massive sellout while hot wallet were emptied. No communication, no support, no answers. Quote Important Announcement! Due to very low volume and lack of good userbase, Crypto-Trade has decided to shutdown permanently due to inability to cover its expenditures on rented servers , staff salary and site promotion. All the users are requested to withdraw their funds within 48 hours.The site will continue to process pending withdrawals till our private wallet is empty. The site will go offline on 29th January 6:00 UTC. Crypto trade was an exchange service with securities exchange. They had their own assets issued: * ESL - 40000 / 40000 shares sold * ESB - 500 / 500 shares sold * CTL - 3294 / 10000 shares sold * CTB - 5392 / 40000 shares sold ESL / ESL Contract details (full contract can be seen here (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=129244.0)) Quote Introduction: This contract explains the Esecurity SA BTC Fund. The capital of this fund will be invested to buy 10 servers at 2500 usd each (25 000 usd total) Those servers will be pluged to our network (koddos.com) and will be rented to our customers. 2500 shares will be issued according BTC/USD market price representing 10 usd each. The monthly average price we do rent our servers is 450 usd. 30% of the server USD income will be converted in BTC to pay dividend to shareholders. Dividend will be paid out monthly at the first day of each month. Price of share: 2500 shares will be issued at total with the goal to obtain 10 usd per share on BTC/USD exchange market. Price of shares will also follow the BTC/USD market price. . . . . . Liquidation of the Fund: When liquidation happens , 25 000 usd ( initial amount USD invested by shareholders in the fund) will be converted to BTC by the issuer and reversed to shareholders in order to close the fund refunding the initial amount of USD invested by shareholders when the fund has been open. CTL / CTB Contract details (full contract can be seen here (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=149458.0)) Quote Distribution of shares: Crypto-Trade will issue 50,000 shares in total to the public. These shares will be sold in 5 batches of 10,000 shares, one batch after each other, whereby 40,000 shares (4 batches at 10,000) will be dedicated to Bitcoin (CTB) and 10,000 shares (1 batch at 10,000) will be dedicated to Litecoin (CTL). All 50,000 shares in total have a share in 50% of the weekly net income of Crypto-Trade Exchange. All assets, namely CTB and CTL, are having equal rights and there's no difference between shares issued in one base currency (Bitcoin) or another (Litecoin). Holdings: The listed asset contains of several holdings that are solely owned by the issuer: - source code, databases, designs, software, content (images, texts, sounds, etc.) of crypto-trade.com - domain name of crypto-trade.com - 6 servers (1x16 cores | 5x8 cores) to run the website - 50% of weekly net profits - voting/moving rights for CTB/CTL assets . . . . . Liquidation of the operation in case of closure: The following steps will be done in case of the company’s closure.At best, the company will be sold to a competitor or to another big company willing to expand their business in the field of crypto currencies. 50% of sales price will redistributed to shareholders as a final dividend in order to close the fund. In a worst scenario, all assets will be liquidated and 50% of revenues will be redistributed to shareholders.Every potential investor is requested to analyze this offer carefully before going ahead, to ensure that it meets the expectations and requirements. Despite the contract details of both listings noone bothered to inform shareholders, nor liquidate assets. In case of ESEC asset, no dividend was paid for almost a year - without explanation. Also noone answers emails nor messages here at forum. KODDOS customer service does not provide any contacts and replies just "we are here just for our customers". Quote Crypto-Trade is owned and managed by Esecurity S.A. Esecurity S.A. Level 23, One Island East, 18 Westlands Road, Quarry Bay, Hong Kong Tel: +852 3750 7973 Fax: +852 2297 2289 stocks@crypto-trade.com Link of Project : https://crypto-trade.com Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: thejaytiesto on January 28, 2015, 05:32:45 PM Karpeles deserves an special award for being the biggest scammer in the BTC world as far as I can remember, that got away with it lol.
Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: Mad_Max on January 28, 2015, 07:00:06 PM ESECURITY S.A. - KODDOS - CRYPTO TRADE Crypto trade announced its closure two days ago, without any warning or notification about problems to its shareholders, which caused massive sellout while hot wallet were emptied. No communication, no support, no answers. Quote Important Announcement! Due to very low volume and lack of good userbase, Crypto-Trade has decided to shutdown permanently due to inability to cover its expenditures on rented servers , staff salary and site promotion. All the users are requested to withdraw their funds within 48 hours.The site will continue to process pending withdrawals till our private wallet is empty. The site will go offline on 29th January 6:00 UTC. Crypto trade was an exchange service with securities exchange. They had their own assets issued: * ESL - 40000 / 40000 shares sold * ESB - 500 / 500 shares sold * CTL - 3294 / 10000 shares sold * CTB - 5392 / 40000 shares sold ................. Despite the contract details of both listings noone bothered to inform shareholders, nor liquidate assets. In case of ESEC asset, no dividend was paid for almost a year - without explanation. Also noone answers emails nor messages here at forum. KODDOS customer service does not provide any contacts and replies just "we are here just for our customers". Some additions/clarifications. CTB and CTL shares is a exactly same asset - just traded in BTC and LTC market respectively. But numbers of shares was halfed from 50000 original plan in quote above. Here is anounce(from 2nd February, 2014): https://crypto-trade.com/news/48 (Local copy also saved) Quote Another change to the IPO that you might like to hear is that the total amount of all issued shares was halfed - from 50,000 to 25,000. So final share count is: This means that every issued share is now representing 0.002% instead of 0.001% of Crypto-Trade's net profits. We already changed this on the shareholders page, the IPO will follow soon. Let us say just another word about the dividends: As a tribute to our initial supporters and early adopters, we were granting a 100% bonus on all shares in the past months, meaning that all net profits since the beginning of the IPO in June 2013 were completely issued to our shareholders (For those of you who are new to Crypto-Trade, you can read about that on the old btct.co site, i.e. in the july dividends statement). * CTL - 3294 / 5000 * CTB - 5392 / 20000 And each CTB/CTL share representing 0.002% of Crypto-Trade's net profits and remaining Crypto-Trade's assets. Dividends was paid in full regularly (each week automatically) and although they were very small, they accordance with the agreement between management and shareholders. Only violated the conditions of the liquidation. And not stop shares trading before closure announce (i and some other users got tons of this shares due can not cancel orders which placed before closure decision and buy a lot of unwanted worthless shares when panic runaway of users began) ESB and ESL is another situation: Business behind it NOT liquidated (it is the KODDOS anti DDOS service: Koddos.com, Kovpslayer.com, which continue to work, but refuse pay dividends or return money invested) ESB and ESL is about same asset (KODDOS servers) but have different nominals not just LTC/BTC market: 1 server(@2500 USD) = 250 ESB shares. 1 share represent 0.4% or 10 USD from initial value. 2 servers (500 ESB) total 1 server(@2500 USD) = 10000 ESL shares. 1 share represent 0.01% or 0.25 USD from initial value. 4 servers (40 000 ESL) total So 1 ESB = 40 ESL. And total IPO asset is 6 servers (x2500=15000 USD), not 10 (25000 USD) as planned initially. Last ESB/ESL dividends was paid at 2014-06-21. Last paid period is May 2014. So not only liquidation process violated but also >7 month(starting from Jun 2014) of dividends (~450*0.3*6*7 = 5670 USD) not paid. Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: shmoula on January 28, 2015, 11:33:43 PM Seems like good news!
Quote Announcement Update! There has been a slight change in our closure procedure.Instead of closing CT forever, we have decided to reopen CT after 3 months with a completely new development team and management staff.Till then your balance will remain with us if not withdrawn by 29th Jan. The new management team will contact all users and shareholders in near future.Feel free to contact us at ctnewteam@crypto-trade.com.Thank you for understanding. Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: flipstyle on January 28, 2015, 11:37:14 PM Seems like good news! Quote Announcement Update! There has been a slight change in our closure procedure.Instead of closing CT forever, we have decided to reopen CT after 3 months with a completely new development team and management staff.Till then your balance will remain with us if not withdrawn by 29th Jan. The new management team will contact all users and shareholders in near future.Feel free to contact us at ctnewteam@crypto-trade.com.Thank you for understanding. hahahahahahahaha. cryptorush 2.0. I swear all these scammy sack of shits all use the same 'scam template' every time. Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: freedomno1 on January 29, 2015, 01:46:37 AM Seems like good news! Quote Announcement Update! There has been a slight change in our closure procedure.Instead of closing CT forever, we have decided to reopen CT after 3 months with a completely new development team and management staff.Till then your balance will remain with us if not withdrawn by 29th Jan. The new management team will contact all users and shareholders in near future.Feel free to contact us at ctnewteam@crypto-trade.com.Thank you for understanding. It's a bit early to call it a mintpal scam yet But it's worth keeping track of this for a while longer in my opinion Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: hongw on January 29, 2015, 02:24:51 AM Have you considered adding in all the bitcointalk ponzi's that we have seen recently (maybe as a whole)?
If not then crypto double apparently got away with 1,000 BTC which should be above your threshold. Additionally according to recent court evidence in the DRP/Ross Ulbright case, $2 million (USD) was stolen from what appeared to be a SR account. Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: shmoula on January 29, 2015, 11:35:27 AM Well, if not CT, then ESECURITY assets were kind of theft. But CT pre-closure was handled very bad - they should stop trades, empty orders and than announce that, like they did some time ago. So let's wait those three months and do something with ESEC/KODDOS theft on shareholders.
It's a bit early to call it a mintpal scam yet But it's worth keeping track of this for a while longer in my opinion Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: KS on March 06, 2015, 09:22:25 PM Shouldn't Ukyo/WeExchange be in here as well?
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=337523.0 Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: dree12 on March 06, 2015, 09:24:07 PM Shouldn't Ukyo/WeExchange be in here as well? https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=337523.0 Thanks. I'll have time again come this Sunday, so I'll put up an update then. Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: RussianRaibow on March 06, 2015, 09:27:11 PM Shouldn't Ukyo/WeExchange be in here as well? https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=337523.0 Thanks. I'll have time again come this Sunday, so I'll put up an update then. I think FiedCat scamming million dollar worth bitcoin in AM hash scam should be a part of it... https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=974058.0 Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: finlon on March 06, 2015, 09:31:36 PM Seems the list also needs to add the BTER hack that happened now. Do you add things ,like the bitstamp hack, even through it was later covered by the company ?
Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: KS on March 12, 2015, 05:29:31 PM LABCOIN too.
http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1ncckq/labcoin_has_been_outed_as_a_scam_run_by_notorious/ https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=325431.0 Labcoin lawsuit https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=263445.0 Labcoin IPO Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: TheGr33k on March 12, 2015, 06:04:54 PM This post is really informative thanks for posting this, all are really cool to look at and read
Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: Possum577 on March 13, 2015, 12:22:37 AM Is there any information how heists, thefts, hacks, and scams have been avoided, fought or resolved?
A list of violations this long doesn't help entice the new user to the Bitcoin system. (Of course the list of violations in cash is endless...so likely will bitcoin.) Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: BitcoinFr34k on March 13, 2015, 12:51:57 AM Is there any information how heists, thefts, hacks, and scams have been avoided, fought or resolved? Those happen every day and are much too many to list individually. The fact that people are able to take precautions in protecting themselves when trading means that they have prevented themselves from getting scammed. A list of violations this long doesn't help entice the new user to the Bitcoin system. (Of course the list of violations in cash is endless...so likely will bitcoin.) Shouldn't Ukyo/WeExchange be in here as well? https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=337523.0 Thanks. I'll have time again come this Sunday, so I'll put up an update then. I think FiedCat scamming million dollar worth bitcoin in AM hash scam should be a part of it... https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=974058.0 Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: freedomno1 on March 13, 2015, 01:04:00 AM I am actually surprised I haven't seen more threads about this. He also has very little negative trust right now because of his scam - he still has overall 150+ positive feedback. It's a wait and see approach with Friedcat, he delivered a lot of miners and paid dividends to IPO holders Could just be a failed business due to bad batches of chips Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: ranlo on March 13, 2015, 01:06:48 AM Is there any information how heists, thefts, hacks, and scams have been avoided, fought or resolved? A list of violations this long doesn't help entice the new user to the Bitcoin system. (Of course the list of violations in cash is endless...so likely will bitcoin.) I think it's a dual-edged sword. On one hand, you're showing potential users the dangers. You're teaching them ahead of time what there is to lose, so they're aware of the implications of using Bitcoin. On the other, you're right: it puts out the message that Bitcoin is nothing but a scam (which is what I hear non-stop from outsiders I speak to about cryptos). The only way to fight this is centralization/government interference, which is what Bitcoin tries to steer away from. Essentially, these scammers are screwing over the entire community (including themselves) to get a few extra dollars. Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: freedomno1 on March 13, 2015, 01:19:36 AM Is there any information how heists, thefts, hacks, and scams have been avoided, fought or resolved? A list of violations this long doesn't help entice the new user to the Bitcoin system. (Of course the list of violations in cash is endless...so likely will bitcoin.) I think it's a dual-edged sword. On one hand, you're showing potential users the dangers. You're teaching them ahead of time what there is to lose, so they're aware of the implications of using Bitcoin. On the other, you're right: it puts out the message that Bitcoin is nothing but a scam (which is what I hear non-stop from outsiders I speak to about cryptos). The only way to fight this is centralization/government interference, which is what Bitcoin tries to steer away from. Essentially, these scammers are screwing over the entire community (including themselves) to get a few extra dollars. Dual-edged is the best way to put it. It doesn't mean we should just ignore the scams in question and forget they ever happened rather we should remember to try and avoid future ones. It does hurt the ecosystem to see so many scams and hacks but an awareness is beneficial to try and prevent repeat occurrences. As for fighting it, to an extent you need to trust others if your using their services exchanges etc as they control your coins same as any bank. Centralization is where it gets complicated more advanced Bitcoin development is looking to resolve the hacking issue with Triple Sig or Quad sig verification aka multisig, and to my knowledge Ethereum/Maidsafe outside Bitcoin are trying to develop distributed smart contracts that act as virtual companies, with tokens of value etc instead. So in the future security developments will make it safer, but it could make it easier to run with coins if the operators themselves are untrustworthy, about half of that long list is operator failure the other part is primarily security breaches not including lost coins. In regards to security breaches solutions can be found, but with a shady operators it's still at present difficult to implement a tracking system that everyone agrees on and will use. (Bitcoin-OTC and Web of Trust technically exist if your going to argue Mircea's point but not that many people use them, didn't work on Pirateat40 though) Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: ranlo on March 13, 2015, 01:35:21 AM about half of that long list is operator failure the other part is primarily security breaches not including lost coins. This leads to another huge problem: you don't know who is telling the truth and who isn't. This "I was hacked" seems to be the most popular excuse now, and there's no way to prove whether or not it's true. Someone can start up a business, run off with $10m, and then say "oh, lol, I was hacked. Sorry guys but it's all gone" and take no blame. Bitcoin-Trader is a big example of this. There is more than enough proof showing that they ran with the funds, yet their claim that they were "hacked" seems to be enough for a lot of people to say it wasn't their fault. Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: Beatkoyn on March 13, 2015, 05:08:35 AM I want to know if how many of these guys are still in active operation right now.
And how many shut down after the attack? Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: sofu on March 19, 2015, 11:01:56 AM 130,000 BTC were stolen from evolution :-\
http://www.deepdotweb.com/2015/03/18/interview-with-nswgreat-evolution-staff-member/ Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: ebliever on March 19, 2015, 01:24:55 PM 130,000 BTC were stolen from evolution :-\ http://www.deepdotweb.com/2015/03/18/interview-with-nswgreat-evolution-staff-member/ Anybody know of evidence these funds have been dumped? I figure the $40 price drop the last day or so is either because the Evolution stash was dumped, or people rushed to sell in expectation it would be dumped, and caused a panic-dump instead. Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: JorgeStolfi on March 19, 2015, 02:18:43 PM Anybody know of evidence these funds have been dumped? I figure the $40 price drop the last day or so is either because the Evolution stash was dumped, or people rushed to sell in expectation it would be dumped, and caused a panic-dump instead. It seems unlikely that the thieves will try to sell the stolen coins directly on an exchange. (Wasn't there a case of an exchange freezing and returning cryptocoins that had been stolen and deposited there by the thief?) The thieves could swap those coins off-exchange with some large criminal mafia; say 5 stolen coins for 1 "clean" coin. The mafia could keep the coins until they "cooled off", or use them for other criminal trades. Meanwhile the thieves could sell the clean coins on the exchanges, and withdraw the cash to legit bank accounts --- and no one would be able to connect that money to the theft. Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: itod on March 19, 2015, 07:08:11 PM Anybody know of evidence these funds have been dumped? I figure the $40 price drop the last day or so is either because the Evolution stash was dumped, or people rushed to sell in expectation it would be dumped, and caused a panic-dump instead. It seems unlikely that the thieves will try to sell the stolen coins directly on an exchange. (Wasn't there a case of an exchange freezing and returning cryptocoins that had been stolen and deposited there by the thief?) The thieves could swap those coins off-exchange with some large criminal mafia; say 5 stolen coins for 1 "clean" coin. The mafia could keep the coins until they "cooled off", or use them for other criminal trades. Meanwhile the thieves could sell the clean coins on the exchanges, and withdraw the cash to legit bank accounts --- and no one would be able to connect that money to the theft. Thieves probably use mixers, there are much smaller expenses to get hard to trace coins in return. For such a large amount like 130K BTC they will probably have to split in smaller batches before they send it to mixers, no mixer has big enough volume for the coins to be untraceable. Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: JorgeStolfi on March 19, 2015, 08:19:56 PM Thieves probably use mixers, there are much smaller expenses to get hard to trace coins in return. For such a large amount like 130K BTC they will probably have to split in smaller batches before they send it to mixers, no mixer has big enough volume for the coins to be untraceable. But, how can the thieves be sure that the mixer is not operated by, hacked by, or cooperating with the police? While the cops may not care for the victims' losses, they must be verey interested in identifying any dark market operators. Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: erpbridge on March 19, 2015, 09:08:53 PM Thieves probably use mixers, there are much smaller expenses to get hard to trace coins in return. For such a large amount like 130K BTC they will probably have to split in smaller batches before they send it to mixers, no mixer has big enough volume for the coins to be untraceable. But, how can the thieves be sure that the mixer is not operated by, hacked by, or cooperating with the police? While the cops may not care for the victims' losses, they must be verey interested in identifying any dark market operators. Mixers like Bitmixer usually do the mixing in faster speeds. They could easily use a site to deposit coins to and withdraw directly to the mixer, leaving almost no evidence for the mixer to be able to track that fast. There are also a lot of other ways they can mix and sell their coins. Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: 1Referee on March 19, 2015, 09:39:52 PM Anybody know of evidence these funds have been dumped? I figure the $40 price drop the last day or so is either because the Evolution stash was dumped, or people rushed to sell in expectation it would be dumped, and caused a panic-dump instead. It seems unlikely that the thieves will try to sell the stolen coins directly on an exchange. (Wasn't there a case of an exchange freezing and returning cryptocoins that had been stolen and deposited there by the thief?) The thieves could swap those coins off-exchange with some large criminal mafia; say 5 stolen coins for 1 "clean" coin. The mafia could keep the coins until they "cooled off", or use them for other criminal trades. Meanwhile the thieves could sell the clean coins on the exchanges, and withdraw the cash to legit bank accounts --- and no one would be able to connect that money to the theft. Thieves probably use mixers, there are much smaller expenses to get hard to trace coins in return. For such a large amount like 130K BTC they will probably have to split in smaller batches before they send it to mixers, no mixer has big enough volume for the coins to be untraceable. Isn't it possible for a mixer to identify stolen coins once deposited and "seize" the coins temporarily to return them to the rightful owner? I don't think any mixer would want to give a thief clean coins and get dirty coins in return. It will ruin their name and make them equally as bad if they know they mixed stolen coins just to scoop up a good fee. Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: JorgeStolfi on March 20, 2015, 12:32:32 AM how can the thieves be sure that the mixer is not operated by, hacked by, or cooperating with the police? Mixers like Bitmixer usually do the mixing in faster speeds. They could easily use a site to deposit coins to and withdraw directly to the mixer, leaving almost no evidence for the mixer to be able to track that fast. While outsiders cannot trace the coins through the mixer, the mixer operators know which inputs were eventually sent to which outputs. They only need to record that information and pass it to law enforcement. The detectives can then skip over the mixing mess and continue tracing from the output. Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: Slaxt on March 20, 2015, 01:12:32 AM Anybody know of evidence these funds have been dumped? I figure the $40 price drop the last day or so is either because the Evolution stash was dumped, or people rushed to sell in expectation it would be dumped, and caused a panic-dump instead. It seems unlikely that the thieves will try to sell the stolen coins directly on an exchange. (Wasn't there a case of an exchange freezing and returning cryptocoins that had been stolen and deposited there by the thief?) The thieves could swap those coins off-exchange with some large criminal mafia; say 5 stolen coins for 1 "clean" coin. The mafia could keep the coins until they "cooled off", or use them for other criminal trades. Meanwhile the thieves could sell the clean coins on the exchanges, and withdraw the cash to legit bank accounts --- and no one would be able to connect that money to the theft. Thieves probably use mixers, there are much smaller expenses to get hard to trace coins in return. For such a large amount like 130K BTC they will probably have to split in smaller batches before they send it to mixers, no mixer has big enough volume for the coins to be untraceable. Isn't it possible for a mixer to identify stolen coins once deposited and "seize" the coins temporarily to return them to the rightful owner? I don't think any mixer would want to give a thief clean coins and get dirty coins in return. It will ruin their name and make them equally as bad if they know they mixed stolen coins just to scoop up a good fee. You would think that but the fact that they clean drug dealers and takers coins in an attempt to help them cover their tracks makes me believe they would not care if the coins were stolen or not i maybe wrong of course but i doubt it. If anything they would probably keep the coins them self and that would be the second theft of coins, 'theory' more than likely just clean them for them.. OP that is a well put together post with all the information needed, awesome to see that much effort has gone into it thanks Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: HR on March 20, 2015, 08:32:55 AM 130,000 BTC were stolen from evolution :-\ http://www.deepdotweb.com/2015/03/18/interview-with-nswgreat-evolution-staff-member/ Bitcoin Scammers Run Off With $12 Million: “Going to The Caribbean… Hope You Guys Understand” (http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-03-19/bitcoin-scammers-run-12-million-%E2%80%9Cgoing-caribbean%E2%80%A6-hope-you-guys-understand%E2%80%9D) Darknet Market Evolution Unreachable, Funds Stolen (https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/darknet-market-evolution-unreachable-funds-stolen/) Dark Market Evolution Vanishes With $12 Million in Bitcoin (http://www.coindesk.com/dark-market-evolution-vanishes-with-12-million-in-bitcoin/) Is everyone actively posting this around BCT? Seems people are not too keen on talking about this and prefer burying their heads in the sand. The LIST goes on and on, and until we start getting vocal and doing something about, it will only continue to grow. Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: HR on March 31, 2015, 09:53:02 AM It's happened again, and, once again, most likely an inside job. http://i57.tinypic.com/zwbz3p.jpg https://www.allcrypt.com/sitedown.html Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: MarbleBoss on March 31, 2015, 10:08:31 AM Not sure whether OP checks this thread and update anymore. If he does, then AM hash scam must be included...
i. Chinese Mining mogul FriedCat has stolen more than a million in AM hash SCAM (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=974058.0) ii. Amhash crisis management and co-ordination (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=982267.0) Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: dscotese on May 04, 2015, 12:09:32 AM If any victim of a heist has offered a reward for any information leading to any recovery of the stolen bitcoins, that information would be useful. Such an offer of reward would normally be avoided by those heists which are inside jobs. I can't believe they were ALL inside jobs, but I've never heard of a reward being offered.
Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: Amitabh S on June 18, 2015, 04:29:55 PM https://blockchain.info/address/1GioJwcuUB6Jwn88nbnfzWrF1pAKnXU3nt
0.01 bitcoins lost permanently I was playing around with bitcoinj+multisigs and the coins somehow got transferred here (destination was supposed to be a multisig address). As of now I have no idea what key this address belongs to. So the coins are effectively lost. Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: edric on June 18, 2015, 04:52:40 PM Hats-off to the author who have put in so much of effort in organizing and presenting so valuable data to us. My observation, most of the cases involves exploiting the loopholes of these system (ofcourse with manual interference). Also, I observed the amount is getting lower and lower with time. Is it due to increase in security?
Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: neutraLTC on June 19, 2015, 10:07:44 AM https://blockchain.info/address/1GioJwcuUB6Jwn88nbnfzWrF1pAKnXU3nt 0.01 bitcoins lost permanently I was playing around with bitcoinj+multisigs and the coins somehow got transferred here (destination was supposed to be a multisig address). As of now I have no idea what key this address belongs to. So the coins are effectively lost. I suggest you use BlockTrail (http://www.blocktrail.com)'s Multi-Sig security, it's much more efficient as one key is held by us, one is downloaded as a PDF (so you can print and store, or whatever) and the other by you. You can also set limits to the amount of bitcoins that can be withdrawn, adding an extra layer of security. Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: Argwai96 on June 19, 2015, 02:56:39 PM https://blockchain.info/address/1GioJwcuUB6Jwn88nbnfzWrF1pAKnXU3nt 0.01 bitcoins lost permanently I was playing around with bitcoinj+multisigs and the coins somehow got transferred here (destination was supposed to be a multisig address). As of now I have no idea what key this address belongs to. So the coins are effectively lost. I suggest you use BlockTrail (http://www.blocktrail.com)'s Multi-Sig security, it's much more efficient as one key is held by us, one is downloaded as a PDF (so you can print and store, or whatever) and the other by you. You can also set limits to the amount of bitcoins that can be withdrawn, adding an extra layer of security. I have been looking at blocktrail this past few days and they offert pretty cool stuff, theformer founder of send chat is now part of blocktrail alejandro de la torre, every should check them out. Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: bitnanigans on June 20, 2015, 01:51:03 PM This doesn't seem to cover the Evolution darknet market exit scam.
Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: ammy009 on June 21, 2015, 12:50:45 PM this list doesn't include bitcoin-24.com ???
I have lost 60% of my total coins...... ;D Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: roadbits on August 01, 2015, 02:23:27 AM Very interesting, not something people like to see but important information. Its scary to consider that these coins may represent a substantial percentage of the active bitcoin market
Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: Tstar on August 25, 2015, 06:52:15 AM Is scrypt.cc included in this thread ,it is the biggest ponzi as far as i know and its cold wallet has an average amount of 1500 + coins and its still running and increasing the coins daily with the help of FANBOYS.
Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: Swordsoffreedom on August 25, 2015, 11:14:00 AM Is scrypt.cc included in this thread ,it is the biggest ponzi as far as i know and its cold wallet has an average amount of 1500 + coins and its still running and increasing the coins daily with the help of FANBOYS. Ponzi scams by their nature tend not to be included as they are considered voluntary Their are exceptions such as Pirateat40 with his Bitcoin Savings and Investment Trust but generally until the coins are stolen it's not counted. Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: shmoula on August 27, 2015, 08:20:59 AM Well, I think it's not early anymore - CT is filthy scam! Some news at CT thread (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=702028.msg12181443#msg12181443).
Seems like good news! Quote Announcement Update! There has been a slight change in our closure procedure.Instead of closing CT forever, we have decided to reopen CT after 3 months with a completely new development team and management staff.Till then your balance will remain with us if not withdrawn by 29th Jan. The new management team will contact all users and shareholders in near future.Feel free to contact us at ctnewteam@crypto-trade.com.Thank you for understanding. It's a bit early to call it a mintpal scam yet But it's worth keeping track of this for a while longer in my opinion Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: killerjoegreece on September 11, 2015, 08:44:14 AM wow that is a lot of money stolen. these things need to stop if btc is to go far.
Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: ranlo on September 12, 2015, 08:31:46 AM wow that is a lot of money stolen. these things need to stop if btc is to go far. The sad part is it's one theft after another, and then people wonder why outsiders feel Bitcoin is a scam. It's because 99% of the Bitcoin-related things ARE scams. Even if you look in the securities section on these forums, you'll find that nearly every business is going to bet at a net loss for perpetuity, and that's excluding those that are clear scams to begin with. Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: Mickeyb on September 12, 2015, 08:39:44 AM wow that is a lot of money stolen. these things need to stop if btc is to go far. The sad part is it's one theft after another, and then people wonder why outsiders feel Bitcoin is a scam. It's because 99% of the Bitcoin-related things ARE scams. Even if you look in the securities section on these forums, you'll find that nearly every business is going to bet at a net loss for perpetuity, and that's excluding those that are clear scams to begin with. I don't know what do you people expect? We live in a dirty world where people will come face to face to you and try to steal from you. Can we really expect the people will do this less when we allow them to hide behind their computer and to try and steal from the other part of the world? I don't think so. Bitcoin will just need to be strong enough to bear this weight on its shoulders as well and to win in the end nevertheless. People scammed and will scam in the future, with Bitcoin or without! Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: ranlo on September 12, 2015, 08:40:54 AM wow that is a lot of money stolen. these things need to stop if btc is to go far. The sad part is it's one theft after another, and then people wonder why outsiders feel Bitcoin is a scam. It's because 99% of the Bitcoin-related things ARE scams. Even if you look in the securities section on these forums, you'll find that nearly every business is going to bet at a net loss for perpetuity, and that's excluding those that are clear scams to begin with. I don't know what do you people expect? We live in a dirty world where people will come face to face to you and try to steal from you. Can we really expect the people will do this less when we allow them to hide behind their computer and to try and steal from the other part of the world? I don't think so. Bitcoin will just need to be strong enough to bear this weight on its shoulders as well and to win in the end nevertheless. People scammed and will scam in the future, with Bitcoin or without! With normal scams, people go to prison. With Bitcoin, almost nobody is ever caught due to being anonymous (to an extent). You're comparing two very different animals. Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: Trouble821 on September 12, 2015, 09:25:58 AM wow that is a lot of money stolen. these things need to stop if btc is to go far. The sad part is it's one theft after another, and then people wonder why outsiders feel Bitcoin is a scam. It's because 99% of the Bitcoin-related things ARE scams. Even if you look in the securities section on these forums, you'll find that nearly every business is going to bet at a net loss for perpetuity, and that's excluding those that are clear scams to begin with. I don't know what do you people expect? We live in a dirty world where people will come face to face to you and try to steal from you. Can we really expect the people will do this less when we allow them to hide behind their computer and to try and steal from the other part of the world? I don't think so. Bitcoin will just need to be strong enough to bear this weight on its shoulders as well and to win in the end nevertheless. People scammed and will scam in the future, with Bitcoin or without! With normal scams, people go to prison. With Bitcoin, almost nobody is ever caught due to being anonymous (to an extent). You're comparing two very different animals. Once in a blue moon a scammer gets charged with something. The Moolah/Mintpal guy was charged with scamming, but he's still on the run as far as I know. When he finally resurfaces he'll get sent to prison for all those Bitcoins he stole. We occasionally get some justice, but most scammers are anonymous and never get caught. Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: Mickeyb on September 12, 2015, 11:05:07 AM wow that is a lot of money stolen. these things need to stop if btc is to go far. The sad part is it's one theft after another, and then people wonder why outsiders feel Bitcoin is a scam. It's because 99% of the Bitcoin-related things ARE scams. Even if you look in the securities section on these forums, you'll find that nearly every business is going to bet at a net loss for perpetuity, and that's excluding those that are clear scams to begin with. I don't know what do you people expect? We live in a dirty world where people will come face to face to you and try to steal from you. Can we really expect the people will do this less when we allow them to hide behind their computer and to try and steal from the other part of the world? I don't think so. Bitcoin will just need to be strong enough to bear this weight on its shoulders as well and to win in the end nevertheless. People scammed and will scam in the future, with Bitcoin or without! With normal scams, people go to prison. With Bitcoin, almost nobody is ever caught due to being anonymous (to an extent). You're comparing two very different animals. No they don't go always to prison, especially with Internet crimes, but I do agree with what you are saying to some extent. With the Internet came new opportunities for scamming. People steal millions by stealing credit card numbers online. People steal millions by hacking accounts, informations etc. All this happens daily and majority never gets caught and they are still at large. Authorities are doing their best to protect us. With new technologies come new challenges and people will need to learn to deal with these new situations. Bitcoin is young, everybody are lost and don't know how to react yet in Bitcoin space, sometimes not even bitcoiners. The same situation is with the authorities. Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: Timelord2067 on September 12, 2015, 09:51:33 PM Without a doubt the Quickseller / Panthers52 / Tomatocage and extraKrispy scam by (as Default Trust) leaving negative feedback / trust and then offering their own Alt's up as escrow thus taking the mark-up on BTC sales and the escrow fee would have to fall into scam / fraud and extortion all in one?
More names of Alt's or other's who are (or were) on the default Trust (DT) list as I become aware of them. Quickseller / Panthers52 / Tomatocage and extraKrispy scam ref: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=855778.msg12402622#msg12402622 Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: BitcoinBoss666 on September 13, 2015, 10:13:37 PM Without a doubt the Quickseller / Panthers52 / Tomatocage and extraKrispy scam by (as Default Trust) leaving negative feedback / trust and then offering their own Alt's up as escrow thus taking the mark-up on BTC sales and the escrow fee would have to fall into scam / fraud and extortion all in one? Remember to add VOD to this list. More names of Alt's or other's who are (or were) on the default Trust (DT) list as I become aware of them. Quickseller / Panthers52 / Tomatocage and extraKrispy scam ref: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=855778.msg12402622#msg12402622 He think he god here and abuse trust system really hard. Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: gogxmagog on September 13, 2015, 10:50:32 PM ACTIVEmining. He's been found guilty of breaking a bunch of securities rules by the Missouri Securities Division (misleading investors, failing to make good on promises etc) and has been issued fines of over $30000. He is also supposed to reimburse all investors for IPO value of shares. So far he has ignored these charges and refuses to cooperate even his lawyer fired him!
The deadline for paying his fine is coming up (can't remember if it's end sept or oct) but he's nowhere to be found. If he doesn't pay the fines it goes to the federal level and he will see jail time and a disgorgement of funds. The FBI will be tasked with hunting his sorry ass down. There was some debate wether he was an outright scam or just in readable incompetent but his behaviour regarding the legal matters and his responsibilities to his shareholders (and the state of Missouri) lean pretty hard toward scammer Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: stuff0577 on September 13, 2015, 11:15:32 PM Wow very nice post. I put some awareness with me. thanks with the list. ;D
Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: ranlo on September 13, 2015, 11:17:32 PM ACTIVEmining. He's been found guilty of breaking a bunch of securities rules by the Missouri Securities Division (misleading investors, failing to make good on promises etc) and has been issued fines of over $30000. He is also supposed to reimburse all investors for IPO value of shares. So far he has ignored these charges and refuses to cooperate even his lawyer fired him! The deadline for paying his fine is coming up (can't remember if it's end sept or oct) but he's nowhere to be found. If he doesn't pay the fines it goes to the federal level and he will see jail time and a disgorgement of funds. The FBI will be tasked with hunting his sorry ass down. There was some debate wether he was an outright scam or just in readable incompetent but his behaviour regarding the legal matters and his responsibilities to his shareholders (and the state of Missouri) lean pretty hard toward scammer I have the feeling these securities fraud accusations are going to come up a lot as the government starts taking a more active role in BTC. Almost any company selling shares on these forums is guilty of the same. Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: Timelord2067 on September 14, 2015, 05:24:27 AM Without a doubt the Quickseller / Panthers52 / Tomatocage and extraKrispy scam by (as Default Trust) leaving negative feedback / trust and then offering their own Alt's up as escrow thus taking the mark-up on BTC sales and the escrow fee would have to fall into scam / fraud and extortion all in one? Remember to add VOD to this list. More names of Alt's or other's who are (or were) on the default Trust (DT) list as I become aware of them. Quickseller / Panthers52 / Tomatocage and extraKrispy scam ref: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=855778.msg12402622#msg12402622 He think he god here and abuse trust system really hard. Vod has given Quickseller and Panthers52 negative trust but not , Tomatocage or extraKrispy... ...and I see s/he gave you negative trust back in July for not paying back a loan??. There'll be a whole lot of default trust resets occurring over the next few weeks me thinks. 2nd edit ACCTseller is another alt of Quickseller... https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1171059.0 3rd edit QS banned is another Alt of Quickseller https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1171059.msg12332658#msg12332658 Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: mescalito on March 26, 2016, 04:02:49 PM So the owner of bitcoin7 has never been identified? It seems he is a pro scammer :)
Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: Timelord2067 on March 27, 2016, 03:37:42 AM So the owner of bitcoin7 has never been identified? It seems he is a pro scammer :) Not on the list of here --> Known alts of anyone: User generated https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1206112.0 - any info you have? I'll see if I can find out anything... ;D Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: mescalito on March 27, 2016, 09:56:58 AM Basically the only info I found is in this thread https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=17043.175
Quote The founder of Bitcoin7 is going to be a speaker at a presentation of bitcoin in Sofia(Bulgaria)..... BTW from the info I remember about the hack, I held around 1/10 of BTC there ::)How do you have moral to show yourself at bitcoin presentation after "loosing" all the coins of your customer. This is the url https://coinwisdomsofia.com/ (you can check him at the speakers section)... update: I saw the page in wap view, now I see the founders name on the pic, way better now Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: defined on March 27, 2016, 10:21:26 AM wow that is a lot of money stolen. these things need to stop if btc is to go far. The sad part is it's one theft after another, and then people wonder why outsiders feel Bitcoin is a scam. It's because 99% of the Bitcoin-related things ARE scams. Even if you look in the securities section on these forums, you'll find that nearly every business is going to bet at a net loss for perpetuity, and that's excluding those that are clear scams to begin with. Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: adhitthana on March 27, 2016, 12:25:09 PM 1.I recovered all my alt coins from Mintpal after it closed. Did others lose?
2.There was the other infamous Mintpal incident where the exchanges and mining pools rolled back a blockchain to recover stolen coins. Was it Vericoin? 3.Polo had coins stolen (2013?) but Busoni worked and paid them all back. 4.C-cex had coins stolen not long before the Polo incident. Some BTC and some Darkcoin which I think were transferred to Polo(?) and dumped Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: Timelord2067 on March 27, 2016, 11:21:36 PM Basically the only info I found is in this thread https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=17043.175 Quote The founder of Bitcoin7 is going to be a speaker at a presentation of bitcoin in Sofia(Bulgaria)..... BTW from the info I remember about the hack, I held around 1/10 of BTC there ::)How do you have moral to show yourself at bitcoin presentation after "loosing" all the coins of your customer. This is the url https://coinwisdomsofia.com/ (you can check him at the speakers section)... update: I saw the page in wap view, now I see the founders name on the pic, way better now I feel 2011 is like digging for dinosaurs I'm afraid to say. I did have a chuckle at the third post however... 1 BTC is $1USD not bad! Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: Timelord2067 on March 27, 2016, 11:56:51 PM jkminkov started a bitcoin7.com thread three and a half hours prior to the one yeponlyone started that you referred to.
15 June 2011, 08:18:25 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=17004.0 http://archive.is/3Vok8 15 June 2011, 10:45:38 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=17043.0 http://archive.is/tfZF8 Both now archived in full (using the Code: ;all Quote Name: jkminkov Posts: 454 Activity: 454 Position: Sr. Member Date Registered: 05 March 2011, 22:14:01 Last Active: 25 March 2016, 01:21:12 Quote Name: yeponlyone Posts: 776 Activity: 504 Position: Hero Member Date Registered: 14 May 2011, 05:49:48 Last Active: 30 December 2015, 07:36:30 Bitcoin7.com https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=22480 Quote Name: Bitcoin7.com Posts: 29 Activity: 29 Position: Newbie Date Registered: 12 June 2011, 23:08:43 Last Active: 04 October 2011, 01:31:44 Bitcoin7.com registers three days earlier than both threads so that fits in with yeponlyone saying s/he was contacted... Hey everyone, I just got a PM from new user, bitcoin7.com, telling me about their new exchange, I've checked it out some and boy does it look classy! Check it out for yourselves, and if we could, would it be possible to whitelist the user so they can give a proper introduction themself? www.bitcoin7.com Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: Timelord2067 on March 28, 2016, 12:17:37 AM Meant to include Chris (Bitcoin7.com) https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=24598
Quote Name: Chris (Bitcoin7.com) Posts: 10 Activity: 10 Position: Newbie Date Registered: 16 June 2011, 18:45:05 Last Active: 21 July 2011, 03:09:56 Hello, this account is an official member of Bitcoin7.com team, I apply for whitelisting. Hello Everyone, Just wanted to post from my own forum account an introduction. I will be posting from it in the future. User Account started pretty much at the end of the exchanges short life. Bitcoin7 - Official letter, following first week of operation https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=21526.0;all http://archive.is/OGy1L (Archived for future reference) Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: NamedUser on March 28, 2016, 01:08:35 AM Wow! I've bookmarked this to come back again and again. What a ton of Bitcoin heists/scams.
Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: themusicgod1 on August 03, 2016, 04:19:34 AM so...about that 700k bitfinex/bitgo hack this week.
Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: dooglus on August 03, 2016, 11:16:04 AM so...about that 700k bitfinex/bitgo hack this week. 119,756btc https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/4vupa6/p2shinfo_shows_movement_out_of_multisig_wallets/d61oe33 Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: BitcoinXio on August 03, 2016, 04:41:55 PM List of bitcoin exchanges hacked this year, hope it helps your list out some: http://bitcoinx.io/news/articles/the-number-of-exchanges-hacked-this-year-may-surprise-you/
Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: Ferrero on August 03, 2016, 04:51:37 PM This is a great list to maintain. I predict that we will see the number of heists increasing, but the size of the heists shrinking over time; simply a matter of decentralization. At least until adoption is totally saturated - at which point it can go either direction.
No more too big to fail. Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: capoeira on August 05, 2016, 12:30:06 PM This is a great list to maintain. I predict that we will see the number of heists increasing, but the size of the heists shrinking over time; simply a matter of decentralization. At least until adoption is totally saturated - at which point it can go either direction. No more too big to fail. no more too big to fail, but soon 50% of coins will be in the hand of criminals. what is the count atm? 10%? Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: LFC_Bitcoin on August 05, 2016, 12:41:24 PM Sad that this list keeps growing & getting added to every year. I wonder what % of coins that have been mined have been stolen from their rightful owner(s).
Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: ImHash on August 05, 2016, 12:45:11 PM damn I think no other currency has so many sh*t going on in their world, this crypto is an infamous place to do business in.
Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: capoeira on August 05, 2016, 12:58:29 PM Sad that this list keeps growing & getting added to every year. I wonder what % of coins that have been mined have been stolen from their rightful owner(s). That's what I'm asking for. There should be a website which counts the stolen coins. it could even track the coins in their wallets. Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: eternalgloom on August 05, 2016, 01:05:55 PM damn I think no other currency has so many sh*t going on in their world, this crypto is an infamous place to do business in. What are you talking about? The amount of US Dollars or Euros stolen every year is a lot bigger than anything that's on this list. Most of those thefts don't make that good of a news story however. Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: capoeira on August 05, 2016, 01:18:25 PM damn I think no other currency has so many sh*t going on in their world, this crypto is an infamous place to do business in. What are you talking about? The amount of US Dollars or Euros stolen every year is a lot bigger than anything that's on this list. Most of those thefts don't make that good of a news story however. there have not been stolen 10% of all $ produced Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: dscotese on August 05, 2016, 06:23:10 PM damn I think no other currency has so many sh*t going on in their world, this crypto is an infamous place to do business in. What are you talking about? The amount of US Dollars or Euros stolen every year is a lot bigger than anything that's on this list. Most of those thefts don't make that good of a news story however. there have not been stolen 10% of all $ produced When the governments responsible for hyperinflation engage in the hyperinflation, has purchasing power been stolen from those who were using that currency? If you admit that it is, then you see that your claim about 10% is false. If you think that it isn't, please explain what you mean by "stolen". Sad that this list keeps growing & getting added to every year. I wonder what % of coins that have been mined have been stolen from their rightful owner(s). That's what I'm asking for. There should be a website which counts the stolen coins. it could even track the coins in their wallets. If I transfer coins from one address to another and then claim that those coins were stolen by someone else, is that a theft that you want included in the answer? Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: CoinBreader on August 05, 2016, 10:45:54 PM congrats for that post ! iv spend some time reading this some of it iv live it and was educating my history in btc, im on btc ship 3yrs +/- and out eyes have seen so much drama!! Sit tight because we have a long road ahead ! 8) just be calm and dont panic !! peace!
Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: marky89 on August 05, 2016, 11:50:49 PM Sad that this list keeps growing & getting added to every year. I wonder what % of coins that have been mined have been stolen from their rightful owner(s). That's something we'll never know. There's been so many small (and large) scams in Bitcoin that hardly anyone can keep track. I suspect this Bitfinex theft will stay near the top for quite some time. Around $70,000,000 at the time. Really quite sad. I too had money on the exchange, and am trying to prepare myself for the worst. At least this is the first time I've been hit by a hack/scam/etc. Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: Timelord2067 on August 06, 2016, 12:59:32 AM You can add BleuTrade.com to the list of scammers:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1562286.0 - Scam Accusation https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1546459.0 - Reputation thread. I can't log in (neither can others) and they haven't responded to my attempts over a number of platforms to contact them. Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: capoeira on August 06, 2016, 01:37:26 AM damn I think no other currency has so many sh*t going on in their world, this crypto is an infamous place to do business in. What are you talking about? The amount of US Dollars or Euros stolen every year is a lot bigger than anything that's on this list. Most of those thefts don't make that good of a news story however. there have not been stolen 10% of all $ produced When the governments responsible for hyperinflation engage in the hyperinflation, has purchasing power been stolen from those who were using that currency? If you admit that it is, then you see that your claim about 10% is false. If you think that it isn't, please explain what you mean by "stolen". the $ never had hyperinflation. but this is a straw man argument anyways Quote Quote That's what I'm asking for. There should be a website which counts the stolen coins. it could even track the coins in their wallets. If I transfer coins from one address to another and then claim that those coins were stolen by someone else, is that a theft that you want included in the answer? no, only "oficial" ones. so, how much is it? guess it passed 10% allready Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: dscotese on August 06, 2016, 07:04:14 PM When the governments responsible for hyperinflation engage in the hyperinflation, has purchasing power been stolen from those who were using that currency? If you admit that it is, then you see that your claim about 10% is false. If you think that it isn't, please explain what you mean by "stolen". the $ never had hyperinflation. but this is a straw man argument anyways Quote You're right, it has not yet hyperinflated. If it does, then will the argument be valid? Quote Quote That's what I'm asking for. There should be a website which counts the stolen coins. it could even track the coins in their wallets. If I transfer coins from one address to another and then claim that those coins were stolen by someone else, is that a theft that you want included in the answer? no, only "oficial" ones. so, how much is it? guess it passed 10% allready How does one determine whether or not a bitcoin heist is "official"? Does the private key have to be used to sign a message of some sort that declares one or more of its outgoing transactions to be theft? That would make sense to me, but that would mean 10% of all bitcoin produced has not been stolen either, unless I just haven't seen these signed messages. Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: lubah on November 26, 2016, 04:37:56 PM Be aware -- anything promoted at www.cryptonews.us is a SCAM -
they're 'bombshell' alert about gyft cards is a complete SCAM -- as is the site buygyft.com -- AVOID Quote Gyft, the leading mobile gift card company, has announced that it will provide an unprecedented discount on gift-card purchases made on Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday using Bitcoin. For one day only, get a 30% discount on every purchase made with Bitcoin! Eligible for only select Gift Cards. The promotion runs from Midnight to 11:59pm EST on Black Friday. View discounted Gift Cards here: https://buygyft.com/buy-gift-cards/ View Full Article on CryptoNews Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: requester on November 26, 2016, 04:57:56 PM I hadn't found HASHOCEAN and COINCE. Firstly Hashocean ran away directly without any warning sop it's a scam and i had left coince after hearing that the site had stopped paying money to user. And also minor sites like bitcodaily and altriacoin had also scanned many user.
Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: Yakamoto on November 26, 2016, 05:34:35 PM I hadn't found HASHOCEAN and COINCE. Firstly Hashocean ran away directly without any warning sop it's a scam and i had left coince after hearing that the site had stopped paying money to user. And also minor sites like bitcodaily and altriacoin had also scanned many user. I personally thought a majority of people within the Bitcoin ecosystem had heard about hashocean and what happened with them, so I don't think it is as important to write down as some of the other, more obscure scams and thefts we've seen recently.Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: Timelord2067 on December 21, 2016, 03:02:40 PM Some random obs: I have seen many references to Bitfunder and Intersango as two notable scams. Bitfunder and other ventures by @Ukyo were connectes to the Neo&Bee collapse. On thread about them: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=640717.0 An Intersango thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=323682.20 I think there was another one, can't find it now. The SheepMarketplace coins were tracked through tumblers etc. by volunteers for some time, but apparently they got tired so now the coins seem to be "lost in the crowd". There is a thread about LKETC, manufacturers of mining equipment, with claims that the controlling software that comes with the machines steals 10% of the mined coins: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=640717.0 The SheepMarketPlace Wallet https://www.walletexplorer.com/wallet/SheepMarketplace still has a balance (22/12/2016) of BTC 23.45590793 in it - $ 19,080 USD according to preev.com - the funds have lain idle since 2015-06-22 21:27:59 while the last withdrawal from any Wallet Address was 2013-12-01 11:43:22 for BTC 6.00 https://www.walletexplorer.com/txid/7e801d8e35c5a6e75434b387c6b19c087e65459faf35086b16f184edaff5eb44 to Wallet Address 1EisbcGAhDENjwG44WXypA2Mfqpk6LgrNf giving a balance of BTC 869.6 which was then slowly wihdrawn over a handful of weeks. 1EisbcGAhDENjwG44WXypA2Mfqpk6LgrNf is part of Wallet [029182b96c] https://www.walletexplorer.com/wallet/029182b96c1c78c7/addresses with just six Wallet Addresses - they are: Code: 1EisbcGAhDENjwG44WXypA2Mfqpk6LgrNf 0.000877 31 284358 Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: dree12 on January 25, 2017, 11:57:55 PM Thank you all for your continued interest. Regrettably, I do not have time to maintain this list into the future.
I would edit a disclaimer into the first post that this list dates from 2014 and is hence quite out of date, but the forum software is not allowing me to. I will preserve the post for historical purposes. Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: HR on April 19, 2017, 09:21:22 AM With last night's delistings of several coins recently pumped on their exchange, and their subsequent crashes, is Poloniex giving us early warning signs that they are looking to get on this list? Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: metropolia on April 19, 2017, 09:35:20 AM With last night's delistings of several coins recently pumped on their exchange, and their subsequent crashes, is Poloniex giving us early warning signs that they are looking to get on this list? Poloniex did delist altcoins in 3-4 months from 2015, it is not a new case. For recent pump on small and shit altcoins, sorry for your loss. You gambled with small alts, so be strong. Don't cry. Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: HR on April 19, 2017, 09:48:36 AM With last night's delistings of several coins recently pumped on their exchange, and their subsequent crashes, is Poloniex giving us early warning signs that they are looking to get on this list? Poloniex did delist altcoins in 3-4 months from 2015, it is not a new case. For recent pump on small and shit altcoins, sorry for your loss. You gambled with small alts, so be strong. Don't cry. Your assumption only demonstrates your ignorance and/or bias. I lost zero. First, don't project your stupidity on others, and secondly, try being less of a psychopath and a little more considerate of your fellow human beings, because somebody did lose, and I'll bet you're at least smart enough to know that it wasn't Poloniex, aren't you? Smart guy. People like you are part of the problem. If you can't see the prima facie evidence, i.e. major pumps + late night announcement to delist + crashes across the board on the coins in question, then you are either stupid or a crook. Care to respond again? If what you try to use as a smoke and mirror argument to justify their actions has any validity at all, please explain the timing and handling. Oh, right, you're going to tell me they have their customers' best interests in mind? Again, I'd say people like you are laughable if it wasn't such a serious problem. Care to trying coming in again and trying that out with a different attitude this time? Or are my initial impressions about you correct? Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: metropolia on April 19, 2017, 10:40:06 AM With last night's delistings of several coins recently pumped on their exchange, and their subsequent crashes, is Poloniex giving us early warning signs that they are looking to get on this list? Poloniex did delist altcoins in 3-4 months from 2015, it is not a new case. For recent pump on small and shit altcoins, sorry for your loss. You gambled with small alts, so be strong. Don't cry. Your assumption only demonstrates your ignorance and/or bias. I lost zero. First, don't project your stupidity on others, and secondly, try being less of a psychopath and a little more considerate of your fellow human beings, because somebody did lose, and I'll bet you're at least smart enough to know that it wasn't Poloniex, aren't you? Smart guy. People like you are part of the problem. If you can't see the prima facie evidence, i.e. major pumps + late night announcement to delist + crashes across the board on the coins in question, then you are either stupid or a crook. Care to respond again? If what you try to use as a smoke and mirror argument to justify their actions has any validity at all, please explain the timing and handling. Oh, right, you're going to tell me they have their customers' best interests in mind? Again, I'd say people like you are laughable if it wasn't such a serious problem. Care to trying coming in again and trying that out with a different attitude this time? Or are my initial impressions about you correct? Ignorance? Hilarious, there are so many unfair things in the world, many ICO scams in here, but where are you? I am altcoin scam buster and hate scams, I saved many ppl to be scammed. You can't blame me with so dirty worlds, you moron. Poloniex is the best one, they have delisted coins since 2015, only a few cried, in crypto world, always winners and losers. Forget the thing and move on. Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: Meuh6879 on July 06, 2017, 09:47:38 PM Can you upgrade (bitfinex for example) ? :) Thanks.
Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: SiFi on July 12, 2017, 01:16:22 PM With last night's delistings of several coins recently pumped on their exchange, and their subsequent crashes, is Poloniex giving us early warning signs that they are looking to get on this list? No Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: Timelord2067 on July 12, 2017, 01:46:11 PM You can add DirectBet.EU (http://www.DirectBet.EU/) to the list of scammers - closed on the 21st of May 2017, no refunds of bets in play. http://archive.is/KaESc#selection-429.0-435.14
Their UID here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=207436 Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: rifiuti on October 10, 2017, 08:23:57 AM This is an important topic. OP should update it.
Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: Evilmorty69 on October 16, 2017, 10:03:55 PM Thanks so much for information!!! Can you say something about Confideal? I've heard that it's good investment.
Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: Janitor on December 01, 2017, 08:11:20 PM BetsOfBitco.in is probably among top 40 - the scammer ran away with funds from unresolved bets.
http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/211yss/betsofbitcoin_down_probably_stolen_users_coins/ Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: ElectricSheep on June 08, 2019, 04:03:14 AM If anyone is still monitoring this thread, I have continued on this list via a Github repo which I invite you all to come contribute any scams, hacks, thefts etc. that I have missed.
https://github.com/Electricsheep01/proof-of-keys/blob/master/README.md Looking forward to your feedback / contributions :) -Sheep Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: Last of the V8s on June 08, 2019, 10:05:36 PM If anyone is still monitoring this thread, I have continued on this list via a Github repo which I invite you all to come contribute any scams, hacks, thefts etc. that I have missed. ugh githubhttps://github.com/Electricsheep01/proof-of-keys/blob/master/README.md Looking forward to your feedback / contributions :) -Sheep but still, nice Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: Timelord2067 on June 08, 2019, 10:53:25 PM No one else seems to have posted the two Cryptopia hacks, one cluster last year and another more published cluster of hacks this year.
I'm keeping a list of Cryptopia - ONLINE ARTICLES related to hack & theft of funds 2019 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5097916.0) it's not an open discussion forum, but there's a link to that open discussion forum in the OP. Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: Nellayar on June 08, 2019, 11:17:02 PM This is what I don't want in cryptocurrency. Many people are taking advantage the system. They hack or scam the people whom just here because of the possibility that they might earn. Many people and even the cryptocurrency itself are destroyed because of the scammy issues happening in our industry. I hope it will be lessen or stopped because even I have the phobia of hacks.
Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: ElectricSheep on June 09, 2019, 04:20:32 AM If anyone is still monitoring this thread, I have continued on this list via a Github repo which I invite you all to come contribute any scams, hacks, thefts etc. that I have missed. ugh githubhttps://github.com/Electricsheep01/proof-of-keys/blob/master/README.md Looking forward to your feedback / contributions :) -Sheep but still, nice I'll eventually get it up on a website but Github for now whilst the list is being finished off. Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: akeegan on September 13, 2019, 09:15:43 PM That is a great detailed list. Have you read or seen CipherTrace AML report? Good reference for more info regarding scams details and loss: https://ciphertrace.com/q2-2019-cryptocurrency-anti-money-laundering-report/
Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: Ivlos on September 18, 2019, 01:03:15 PM wow that is a lot of money stolen...
Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: FreeEarnsActivist on December 19, 2019, 11:02:03 AM Have u head about a new service made by AML company - Coinfirm called - ReclaimCrypto? They made it to help victims of scams/hacks - https://www.coindesk.com/theres-a-new-way-to-get-your-stolen-crypto-back
Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: WRAOUF on January 05, 2020, 04:06:08 PM Hats-off to the author who have put in so much of effort in organizing and presenting so valuable data to us. My observation, most of the cases involves exploiting the loopholes of these system (ofcourse with manual interference). Also, I observed the amount is getting lower and lower with time. Is it due to increase in security?
Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: malevolent on January 11, 2020, 02:22:21 AM Hats-off to the author who have put in so much of effort in organizing and presenting so valuable data to us. My observation, most of the cases involves exploiting the loopholes of these system (ofcourse with manual interference). Also, I observed the amount is getting lower and lower with time. Is it due to increase in security? The thread hasn't been updated in a very long time, but the amounts might be getting lower with time only in terms of raw bitcoins, the average real market value of a major scam is much higher than in the early days, which is unsurprising given how many more people use Bitcoin and how much the price has increased. Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: bfish on November 20, 2020, 02:31:38 AM If anyone is still monitoring this thread, I have continued on this list via a Github repo which I invite you all to come contribute any scams, hacks, thefts etc. that I have missed. https://github.com/Electricsheep01/proof-of-keys/blob/master/README.md Looking forward to your feedback / contributions :) -Sheep Hi This link does not seem to work anymore. Is there any way to still get the data you collected? I would be very interested in having more recent data. Thank you in advance for your time and work. Sorry to bother you with this! Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: funnynews on February 01, 2021, 09:52:38 AM I’d like to see something similar but with coins not and scam projects
Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: malevolent on February 02, 2021, 12:05:34 AM allinvain's theft, and thefts by a trojan have been mentioned, but most of the time it's hard to get accurate information and verify them. It's easier to verify if an exchange shuts down due to a hack or an exit scam. Even heists/thefts/hacks/scams of and by exchanges and other services have become too numerous for OP to bother continuing to catalogue.
Title: Re: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses Post by: xcaret on February 02, 2021, 10:05:27 PM Here's another one . https://globalnews.ca/tag/quadrigacx/ .
"Collapse of Quadriga crypto exchange was ‘old-fashioned fraud wrapped in modern technology’: OSC" This is like reading a mystery pocket novel , many in's and out's , is the fraudster dead? The sole holder if all the crypto account people stored with Quadriga cx vanished with the pass words to the 200 million in crypto currencies . For a real good read google it ,and read the very lengthy account on Wiki . BTW more evidence pop's up every few months , did the guy fake his own death ? or really dead. What about his wife ? what about his partner who is a convcted ponzi scheme operator ? |
