Xbox Underground crew received Bitcoin payments 2011-2013

[jogoo]

The infamous Xbox Underground crew. They were a group of mostly teenagers and young adults who, between 2011 and 2013, pulled off one of the most audacious hacks in gaming history. They received bitcoin payments for stolen data and dev kits (for obvious reasons) when BTC was trading under $100 so they must have accumulated hundreds of thousands of bitcoins. Many were caught with thousands of $ currency. I wonder if they held onto their bitcoins or cashed out early. It was the early days of bitcoin, so I don't think the authorities knew how to track the coins of these hackers.

[nutildah]

They received bitcoin payments for stolen data and dev kits (for obvious reasons) when BTC was trading under $100 so they must have accumulated hundreds of thousands of bitcoins. 

How do you know they received Bitcoin? There's no mention of it anywhere that I can find online, and it doesn't appear that they had a presence on Silk Road, which was the only darknet market in operation at the time. It seems like they used Ebay and other methods to get dollars.

Nevertheless, its an interesting case, and there's even 2 episodes dedicated to it on the Darknet Diaries podcast.

[NotATether]

I'm pretty sure most of it was dumped onto the market at least a couple years later.

Hackers aren't exactly known to be the best HODLers, and unless somebody misplaced a sum of Bitcoin, it has most likely already been sold.

[headingnorth]

The infamous Xbox Underground crew. They were a group of mostly teenagers and young adults

You answered your own question. People of that age would have cashed out early for sure.
I doubt any of them held on to their bitcoins for more than a month or two if that.

If the bitcoins were hacked they would have been dumped almost immediately.
Thieves are not long-term investors. They would have quickly spent all their cashed out bitcoin on
Lambos, Penthouse suites, etc. and eventually end up broke like most lottery winners.

Young people who suddenly run into a large amount of money have no impulse control.

[Outhue]

You are joking right? If they are caught already then those Bitcoin must have been part of the seized bitcoin in the hands of the government, if truly they are caught then there is no escape for the stolen money either.

You are talking as if you don't know what the government are capable of, you can only get away from them if they can't catch you but once you are arrested it's over for every secrets and hidden things you have, they will be forced to come to light.

[buwaytress]

Why not start asking them? Easy money, easy go. It's not about how much you get when you're a kid, rather, how much you saved. And you generally don't save what you steal, you turn it into something else or, as kids and teenagers generally do, you blow it all...

[EluguHcman]

Many were caught with thousands of $ currency. I wonder if they held onto their bitcoins or cashed out early. It was the early days of bitcoin, so I don't think the authorities knew how to track the coins of these hackers.

Was it ever disclosed that they also received Bitcoin following their apprehension on their illegal indulgences? If $ were recovered from them on that course what made you think there was not going a be a tool to hunt them with other places they launder their funds? Let me remind you that the case of Ross Ulbricht and the darknet marketplace Silk Road happened in 2013 and was not scot free from the US government.

So don't believe it was beyond figure of the government to get those hackers on track if at all they were associated with Bitcoin because as at that time in 2013, there was already networking surveillance tools aligning with the Blockchain analysts to track hackers. Though it was not sophisticated and advanced as the tracking tools we have today and that is why we still believe the total acquired Bitcoin of Ross Ulbricht was not recovered by the US government.

Also remember the total accumulated US reserve on Bitcoin which were acquired by recovery were not all put to analysis of their source. So never undermined. If those so called Xbox crew actually acquired Bitcoin with the indulgence, they must have been among the US Bitcoin seizures but I doubt if they were associated with Bitcoin otherwise, the news must had been speculated all these while.

[dkbit98]

I think two or more guys from this hacker groups worked with FBI to take them down and arrested.
That means there is a good chance FBI seized their Bitcoins and cash they had, along with hard drives.
Unless you can post original BTC addresses they used we can't know for sure what happened with those coins.

[finaleshot2016]

The infamous Xbox Underground crew. They were a group of mostly teenagers and young adults who, between 2011 and 2013, pulled off one of the most audacious hacks in gaming history. They received bitcoin payments for stolen data and dev kits (for obvious reasons) when BTC was trading under $100 so they must have accumulated hundreds of thousands of bitcoins. Many were caught with thousands of $ currency. I wonder if they held onto their bitcoins or cashed out early. It was the early days of bitcoin, so I don't think the authorities knew how to track the coins of these hackers.

If they are teenagers, chances are they prolly sold those to have quick profit or maybe they stash a few BTCs and still holding it until now. But who knows, if the story is real and they literally received BTC, then yes they will sold it since that time BTC is not established, even the pizza guy sold it for pizza. But I haven't seen any proof on the internet, even some reputable platforms don't tell anything about BTC received by the group, probably storytellers assumed it since they're a hacking group that usually accepts BTC for payments.

[Kryss191]

Yeah, back then Bitcoin wasn’t seen as "digital gold", just nerd money or shady payment rails. Even if they had a ton of BTC, chances are most of it got spent on other shady stuff or lost entirely. It was also super easy to misplace wallets back then with no backups

[boyptc]

No one knows if they have held that for so long. But if Bitcoin was traded at $100 during that time, a 10x could have made them sold that totally.

So, when it reached $1k and even $20k, that's likely where they have sold the most unless they truly are diamond hands just like the recent news about 80k BTCs that have been sold.

There were a lot of ways to mine easy Bitcoin before and lucky are those who were able to do it.

[tread93]

The infamous Xbox Underground crew. They were a group of mostly teenagers and young adults who, between 2011 and 2013, pulled off one of the most audacious hacks in gaming history. They received bitcoin payments for stolen data and dev kits (for obvious reasons) when BTC was trading under $100 so they must have accumulated hundreds of thousands of bitcoins. Many were caught with thousands of $ currency. I wonder if they held onto their bitcoins or cashed out early. It was the early days of bitcoin, so I don't think the authorities knew how to track the coins of these hackers.

I remember having so much fun with my friends glitching in call of duty and playing on the Xbox, mostly first person shooter games. Loved it so much,  only wish I was part of Xbox underground 😉