List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses

[Willisius]

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)

I think it is still too early to call this hack to be over. When bitstamp reopens, it is possible the size of the hack could be extended when they refill their hot wallet and/or the process of having to tap funds from cold storage multiple times.

[1713551954]

1713551954

[1713551954]

1713551954

[LiteCoinGuy]

good list, thanks for updating.

(unfortunately the Paycoin / Paybase Scam is excluded )

[asdlolciterquit]

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)

I think it is still too early to call this hack to be over. When bitstamp reopens, it is possible the size of the hack could be extended when they refill their hot wallet and/or the process of having to tap funds from cold storage multiple times.

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

[newIndia]

good list, thanks for updating.

(unfortunately the Paycoin / Paybase Scam is excluded )

PB mining and hashie scams are excluded as well...

[flipstyle]

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?

[dree12]

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.

[Guido]

amazing work by op

any whales floating by should send him a btc tip for his hard work and dilligence imo

[GreekBitcoin]

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. 

[neo1947]

great job  many thanks.

[dree12]

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.

[freedomno1]

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

[freedombit]

A quick visualization of the data:



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.***

[freedombit]

There are three heists that stand out in a big way. What is the common thread? 

[carl_sagan]

I just wanted to say, really amazing job putting this together. I am impressed with how thorough and detailed it is.

[khai42]

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? 

[Baitty]

I read that the bitstamp money loss was far less than reported anyone can back this up?

[mayax]

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   

[shmoula]

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.

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)

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)

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".

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

[thejaytiesto]

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.

[Mad_Max]

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.

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)

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.
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).

So final share count is:
* 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.