List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses [Old]

[Stephen Gornick]

FXBTC.com (exchange in China):

I think it should be reported to the police, and severely punish these criminals

[Google Translate]

 - http://www.btcbbs.com/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=227

[dree12]

FXBTC.com (exchange in China):

I think it should be reported to the police, and severely punish these criminals

[Google Translate]

 - http://www.btcbbs.com/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=227

Nice find, but the 200 BTC estimate does not meet the barrier.

coinabul.com stole 80 plus btc.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=149253.0

Thanks for reporting, but the amount is too small. The list would become worthless if these small-scale scams were included.

BitLC.net
Feb 13, 2013

Currently I have no other option but to come clean about everything,

- https://www.bitlc.net

Good call. I'll put this down with a 2000 BTC estimate.

[Stephen Gornick]

And the hits keep on coming!

By doing this, he locked out both my login and Gareths's login and they used this to hijack our emails and reset the login for one exchange (VirWox), enabling them to gain access and steal $12,480 USD worth of BTC.

- http://blog.bitinstant.com/blog/2013/3/4/events-of-friday-bitinstant-back-online.html

Nice find, but the 200 BTC estimate does not meet the barrier.

Losses of $8K USD are immaterial?  I suppose "Major" means something different nowadays.   Does BitInstant's $12K loss even qualify then?

[dree12]

And the hits keep on coming!

By doing this, he locked out both my login and Gareths's login and they used this to hijack our emails and reset the login for one exchange (VirWox), enabling them to gain access and steal $12,480 USD worth of BTC.

- http://blog.bitinstant.com/blog/2013/3/4/events-of-friday-bitinstant-back-online.html

Nice find, but the 200 BTC estimate does not meet the barrier.

Losses of $8K USD are immaterial?  I suppose "Major" means something different nowadays.   Does BitInstant's $12K loss even qualify then?

Ubitex, Andrew Nollan, the Mt. Gox gaffé, and Bitscalper were technically all smaller, so I wouldn't say $12K is "immaterial". However, I risk saturating the list if I add too many of these smaller-scale thefts. What I'll do for now is hide these 4 thefts from the severity listing, and maintain the current 1000 BTC cutoff (which I hope to replace with a USD cutoff sometime in the future.

[apetersson]

I agree. While painful 333 BTC is only symbolic, compareed to the total business of Bitinstant. i wish them best luck in securing their site further and possibly prosecuting the thief.

[crazy_rabbit]

I was just thinking about Pirate and his 500K BTC at $46..........*sigh*

[farfiman]

I was just thinking about Pirate and his 500K BTC at $46..........*sigh*

If he actually has any reasonable size of coins left he could sell today and pay everybody back at the dollar value of btc  when he shut down.  I'm sure everyone would take that with open arms and get off his case....

[dree12]

Please stand by.

There was a past event yesterday that may be added to the list. The recent chain fork has not only affected miner revenue, but may also have caused double-spending attacks.

Mining cost: 748.18715667 BTC
Double-spend:

• OKPay: 211.9093 BTC

Preliminary total: 960.09645667 BTC

Final update: No other double-spend attacks have been reported. The event therefore does not qualify for inclusion.

[justusranvier]

Shouldn't TORWallet be on this list?

[lophie]

Please stand by.

There was a past event yesterday that may be added to the list. The recent chain fork has not only affected miner revenue, but may also have caused double-spending attacks.

Mining cost: 748.18715667 BTC
Double-spend:

• OKPay: 211.9093 BTC

Preliminary total: 960.09645667 BTC

There was a discussion on IRC and on these forums regarding if the fork made double spending possible and I was refuted and plainly lost the argument. No the fork did not enable the possibility of a double spend

[Stephen Gornick]

There was a discussion on IRC and on these forums regarding if the fork made double spending possible and I was refuted and plainly lost the argument. No the fork did not enable the possibility of a double spend

It most certainly did.  The OKPay double spend was an intentional double spend (performed by manually constructing and broadcasting a transaction that re-spent previously spent funds) and was successful due to a combination of factors.

There still are even more double spends that can be performed (as they are still unconfirmed and not yet spent) but simply haven't (yet):

There are several transactions that were confirmed in the major fork a few days ago but have not confirmed in the new chain for some reason. Normally these transactions would be pruned however since they are already included in an orphaned block they cannot be removed, this is unusual and I'm not sure why they are not confirming. I have rebroadcasted them several times but it doesn't seem to have helped, the best course of action would be to double spend them with another client.

[dree12]

Bitcoin Central & Instawallet security breach. More info.

Instawallet and Bitcoin Central are currently down. They are reporting a security breach. Below are a link to BitcoinTalk threads covering this event:

• https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=164126.0
• https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=164143.0
• https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=164132.0
• https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=129461.440

Update:
Bitcoin Central has released a statement claiming all funds are under their exclusive control.

Transactions of interest: see 1LrPYjto3hsLzWJNstghuwdrQXB96KbrCy

[CasinoBit]

I have been speculating over the list for quite some time, this should be mandatory to read for every bitcoin website owner as the barriers are quite low these days.

[asoltys]

I had 160 coins stolen recently.  I posted the details on reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1czrua/just_lost_160_btc_from_address_managed_with/

The thieving transaction was https://blockchain.info/tx/5abb271eb6e2d0da1855b06282c84dcf7467dda9da6da9090cad10ddae957fc7

Approximate value at the time of theft: $22000

The coins began moving roughly a day later.  I'm presuming they were laundered through a mixing service though I haven't done an analysis or attempted to trace them.  https://blockchain.info/tx/c751475e90f0747295794fdfa4aad8556dda24f3b50b932322fd25422c6cf507

[Stunna]

Thanks for compiling this list, has been quite an interesting read. By far the most peculiar scam I've seen however has been pirate's ponzi scheme. The fact that someone managed to scam 5% of bitcoins in circulation and crash the market is jaw dropping. Also it is crazy to look back and see all the people who supported/defended him back then.

I remember a good real life friend of mine was telling me about pirate before he scammed everyone and wanted to invest all his money with the guy. I was a non-bitcoiner then and to me it just sounded like the most obvious ponzi scheme, so I will never understand how people fell for it to such a great extent.

[kcirazy]

My current view is that Bitcoin is and will forever be public property and anybody who is able to make the transfers (by being in possession of the private keys) is allowed to do so.
Unless you scam people in making transactions while making false promises or you break the law while obtaining the private keys, I don't think there is any legal system protecting someone against you transfering all the bitcoin to another address. Which effectively makes it legal to take any bitcoins you want as long as you are able.

The only way I see around this is having an international institution like the U.N. attaching your name to a private key.

Is there anybody who can provide a source for a single conviction or legal action against a person that comitted a Bitcoin "heist" or "theft" (not "scam")?

[Ente]

My current view is that Bitcoin is and will forever been public property and anybody who is able to make the transfers (by being in possession of the private keys) is allowed to do so.
Unless you scam people in making transactions while making false promises or you break the law while obtaining the private keys, I don't think there is any legal system protecting you against somebody else tranfering all the bitcoin to another address. Which effectively makes it legal to take any bitcoins you want as long as you are able.

The only way I see around this is having an international institution like the U.N. attaching your name to a private key.

Is there anybody who can provide a source for a single conviction or legal action against a person that comitted a Bitcoin "heist" or "theft" (not "scam")?

Uhm..
"If someone has your private key or your Bitcoins, and didn't do anything illegal, it' not illegal".
Wut?

An example would help me here..

I don't see where Bitcoin is any different to money or apples. I am not allowed to steal neither of them.

Ente

[mprep]

Man so many unfortunate events. So much Bitcoin my brain can't comprehend.

[kcirazy]

I don't see where Bitcoin is any different to money or apples. I am not allowed to steal neither of them.

It's impossible to steal information, only to copy it.
Unless you take away one's ability to access that information, I can't see it as stealing.
Bitcoins are public information, because they are stored on the blockchain.
Maybe you want to protect private keys with intellectual property laws, but that would require some kind of proof that you were the only one to have access to them in the first place.
I don't see any other way to make "bitcoin theft" illegal.

[Razick]

Thanks for putting this together. It is a great reference.