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

[dree12]

Partial update is up. I'll keep working on the full backlog and put up a full update soon.

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[hikedoon]

 This was well worth reading.
Thanks for taking the time to write this up.
 

[oceans]

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.

[Mobius]

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 am not so sure about this. I think it would be more accurate to say that exchanges that grow too quickly will eventually close down due to a hack. If an exchange is able to limit it's growth then it can continue it's security procedures as it becomes more of a target to hackers.

[dooglus]

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]

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.

[dree12]

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]

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.

[dooglus]

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.

[zen2]

Much much much Money hack and Lose People Money

[wzb422]

thanks for your sharing

[heybigboy1]

I remember like six of these. Sad to see and know people go that low to do this..

[Timelord2067]

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...

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.

[EndlessStory]

Thanks for the alerts. This list will come useful. Bookmarked it for future use.

[ProfMac]

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.

[Mars not Moon]

That's a very big list. Thanks a lot , bookmarking it now.

It will definitely prove very useful in trades.

[Timelord2067]

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

[dree12]

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.

[malevolent]

Mintpal https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=824211.0

[BittBurger]

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-

[Window2Wall]

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-

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)

[magic ice]

I read about some of this incidents. I wonder where are these people (who did it) right now.