Bitcointalk Mobile Browser presented by IRLBTC™

>> (p.1)

Author

Topic: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses (Read 87686 times)

dree12 (OP)

Legendary

Offline

Activity: 1246
Merit: 1085

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

April 19, 2014, 01:56:22 AM
Last edit: November 16, 2014, 12:36:59 AM by dree12

Merited by hugeblack (15), dbshck (12), malevolent (7), suchmoon (4), Husna QA (3), ABCbits (2), FuzzyBear (2), levyashin (2), vapourminer (1), bitbollo (1), GazetaBitcoin (1), elianite (1), xtraelv (1), apoorvlathey (1)

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.

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

Table of Contents
License
Factual inaccuracies
Donation
Scope
Instructions
List of events by severity
List of events by BTC value stolen
List of events in rough chronological order
Thefts not included
- Minor but notable thefts
- Other thefts outside the scope of this list
  - Too small
  - Borderline theft
On watch
References & Footnotes
Credits

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. 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 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:

Year	Cutoff Value	Severity list cutoff
2009	5000 BTC	N/A
2010	5000 BTC	N/A
2011	1000 BTC	12000 $
2012	1000 BTC	12000 $
2013	1000 BTC	12000 $
2014	500 BTC	N/A

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] 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 for such data.

Rank	Name	Severity (January 2014 BTC)	USD Equivalent
1	2014 Mt. Gox Collapse	850000.000 BTC	700258171 $
2	Silk Road Seizure	32716.283 BTC	26867560 $
3	Sheep Marketplace Incident	4978.276 BTC	4070923 $
4	Silk Road 2 Incident	4400.000 BTC	3624866 $
5	GBL Scam	4185.734 BTC	3437446 $
6	MintPal Incident	3894.492 BTC	3208412 $
7	Bitcoin Savings and Trust	3700.408 BTC	2983473 $
8	PicoStocks Hack	3679.520 BTC	3009397 $
9	MyBitcoin Theft	1395.691 BTC	1072570 $
10	CryptoRush Theft	950.000 BTC	782641 $
11	Flexcoin Theft	896.104 BTC	738240 $
12	BIPS Hack	808.140 BTC	660959 $
13	Inputs.io Hack	780.069 BTC	640615 $
14	James Howells Loss	763.965 BTC	627659 $
15	Allinvain Theft	580.983 BTC	445688 $
16	BASIC-MINING	405.445 BTC	332963 $
17	July 2012 Bitcoinica Theft	398.757 BTC	315133 $
18	Bitfloor Theft	338.861 BTC	273209 $
19	Bitcash.cz Hack	302.517 BTC	247422 $
20	Bitomat.pl Loss	301.332 BTC	231570 $
21	Bitcoin Rain	283.696 BTC	231440 $
22	Linode Hacks	281.818 BTC	223278 $
23	May 2012 Bitcoinica Hack	240.993 BTC	191638 $
24	ZigGap	240.128 BTC	195490 $
25	Vircurex Theft	199.938 BTC	163351 $
26	Tony Silk Road Scam	184.356 BTC	146944 $
27	Stefan Thomas Loss	162.675 BTC	124793 $
28	Just Dice Incident	132.436 BTC	108807 $
29	Cdecker Theft	129.745 BTC	104607 $
30	Ozcoin Theft	129.713 BTC	105600 $
31	Mass MyBitcoin Thefts	93.409 BTC	71656 $
32	BTCGuild Incident	88.939 BTC	72556 $
33	2013 Fork	68.094 BTC	55551 $
34	Bit LC Theft	63.434 BTC	51480 $
35	June 2011 Mt. Gox Incident	61.428 BTC	47123 $
36	Kronos Hack	53.633 BTC	42859 $
37	2012 Trojan	49.054 BTC	39146 $
38	BTC-E Hack	44.860 BTC	35452 $
39	Mooncoin Theft	28.831 BTC	22346 $
40	Bitcoin7 Incident	20.703 BTC	15980 $
41	Ubitex Scam	20.189 BTC	15515 $
42	Betcoin Theft	19.490 BTC	15534 $
43	Bitcoin Syndicate Theft	18.469 BTC	14595 $
44	2012 50BTC Theft	16.678 BTC	13437 $
45	Andrew Nollan Scam	13.961 BTC	10895 $
46	October 2011 Mt. Gox Loss	10.804 BTC	8340 $
47	Bitscalper Scam	8.156 BTC	6461 $
48	Stone Man Loss	0.758 BTC	544 $

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)

Rank	Name	Time	Severity
1	Bitcoin Savings and Trust	20112012	est. 263024 BTC
2	Silk Road Seizure	October 2013	171955.09292687 BTC
3	MyBitcoin Theft	July 2011	78739.58205388 BTC
4	Linode Hacks	March 2012	l.b. 46653.46630495 BTC
5	July 2012 Bitcoinica Theft	July 2012	40000.00000000 BTC
6*	May 2012 Bitcoinica Hack	May 2012 Unresolved as of December 2012	18547.66867623 BTC 39000 BTC total impact
7	Allinvain Theft	June 2011	25000.01000000 BTC
8	Tony Silk Road Scam	April 2012	est. 30000 BTC
9	Bitfloor Theft	September 2012	u.b. 24086.17219307 BTC
10	Bitomat.pl Loss	August 2011	est. 17000 BTC

* Rank includes pass-through impact

Major (≥1 kBTC)

Rank	Name	Time	Severity
11	Cdecker Theft	September 2012	9222.21195900 BTC
12	Stone Man Loss	August 2010	8999.00000000 BTC
13	Stefan Thomas Loss	June 2011	est. 7000 BTC
14	Bitcoin7 Incident	October 2011	l.b. 5000 BTC u.b. 15000 BTC
15	BTC-E Hack	July 2012	est. 4500 BTC
16	Inputs.io Hack	October 2013	est. 4100 BTC
17	Mass MyBitcoin Thefts	June 2011	4019.42939378 BTC
18	Mooncoin Theft	September 2011	est. 4000 BTC
19	Kronos Hack	Unknown	est. 4000 BTC
20	Bitcoin Rain	20112013	est. 4000 BTC
21	2012 Trojan	September through November 2012	3500 BTC a. 3457 BTC
22	Betcoin Theft	April 2012	3171.50195016 BTC
23	June 2011 Mt. Gox Incident	June 2011	l.b. 2643.27 BTC
24	October 2011 Mt. Gox Loss	October 2011	2609.36304319 BTC
25	Andrew Nollan Scam	February 2012	l.b. 2211.07786728 BTC
26	BASIC-MINING	October 2013	a. 2131 BTC
27	Bit LC Theft	February 2013	est. 2000 BTC
28	Bitcoin Syndicate Theft	July 2012	1852.61553553 BTC
29	ZigGap	2012	a. 1708.65967460 BTC
30	Bitscalper Scam	2012	est. 1350.10259806 BTC
31	Just Dice Incident	July 2013	1300.15500000 BTC
32	BTCGuild Incident	March 2013	a. 1254 BTC
33	2012 50BTC Theft	October 2012	1173.51659074 BTC
34	Ubitex Scam	2011	a. 1138.98 BTC

Borderline (<1 kBTC)

Rank	Name	Time	Severity
35	2013 Fork	March 2013	960.09645667 BTC
36	Ozcoin Theft	April 2013	922.99063322 BTC

dree12 (OP)

Legendary

Offline

Activity: 1246
Merit: 1085

List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses [2]

April 19, 2014, 01:57:04 AM
Last edit: November 16, 2014, 12:00:10 AM by dree12

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]
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]
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] 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]
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 backupsmany 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]
Victim: Bitcointalk.org user allinvain
Status: Thief uncaught
Amount: Exactly 25000.01000000 BTC^[7]
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:

Stolen by thief: 2000 BTC^[8]
Additional withdrawn from Mt. Gox: 643.27 BTC^[9] (lower bound)

Amount: Lower bound 2643.27 BTC
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]

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]

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.

Mass MyBitcoin Thefts
NB: Not to be confused with the far more severe MyBitcoin Theft.
Time: 2011-06-20 through 2011-06-21
Victim: MyBitcoin users with weak account passwords
Amount: Exactly 4019.42939378 BTC^[11]
Equivalent in USD: 71656 $
Equivalent in January 2014 BTC: 93.4 BTC
Transactions: all to 1MAazCWMydsQB5ynYXqSGQDjNQMN3HFmEu^[12]
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 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] Users that were not affected would be later stolen from anyways, due to the subsequent 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]
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]
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:

Official story: Potential inside job (an employee perpetrated a theft).^[15]
Previous official story: Unknown hacker from Eastern Europe or Russia.^[16]
Suspected scam by several members of the community.

Amount: Lower bound 5000 BTC^[15]^[17]
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:
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Mt. Gox did not pass the impacts of this incident on to customers.

dree12 (OP)

Legendary

Offline

Activity: 1246
Merit: 1085

List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses [3]

April 19, 2014, 01:57:16 AM
Last edit: November 16, 2014, 12:00:24 AM by dree12

Bitscalper Scam^[18]
Time: January 2012 to March 2012
Suspects:

Alberto Armandi
- bitdaytrade @BitcoinTalk
- bitscalper @BitcoinTalk
- jjfarren @BitcoinTalk

Victim: Users of Bitscalper
Status: MiningBuddy (bitcointalk.org user) attempted to reorganize bitscalper, but failed. No coins have been returned at all.
Amount: Lower bound 1350 BTC^[19]
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]
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]) (thief) known but disappeared, repaid some (not included in amount)
Amount: Lower bound 2211.07786728 BTC, possibly more ^[22]
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:

Bitcoinica: 43554.02005417 BTC^[23]
Bitcoin.cx: 3094.45825078 BTC^[24]
Bitcoin faucet^[25]: 4.98800000 BTC^[26]

Equivalent in USD: 223278 $
Equivalent in January 2014 BTC: 282 BTC
Transactions of interest:
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^[25]

In early March 2012, the New Jersey-based web and cloud hosting company Linode was suspected of robbing many popular Bitcoin services. A vulnerability in the customer support system was used to obtain administrator access to the servers. Once the Linode servers were compromised, eight accounts dealing with bitcoins were targeted.^[27] The hardest hit was the bitcoin trading platform, Bitcoinica. This resulted in the unauthorized transfer of BTC from the hot wallets, a term used to describe operational withdrawal wallets, of the services affected. A severe bitcoin-denominated theft, the Linode theft also affected Tradehill, but no coins were stolen from them; instead, Tradehill had a short downtime because of the incident. In the aftermath of this theft, all the services migrated to other platforms. To this day, Bitcoin users fear Linode and usually refrain from using its services.

Betcoin Theft
Time:

Event	Time
Theft Commences Transaction: #1, #2	2012-04-11T10:55:54
Theft Continues Transaction: #3	2012-04-11T12:15:49
Theft Culminates Transaction: #4	2012-04-11T12:43:14

All times are blockchain time, and have possible error of up to 3 hours.
Victims: Betco.in, creditors
Status: Hacker not known. Some of creditors' deposits were repaid, around 2900 BTC outstanding.^[28]
Amount: Exactly 3171.50195016 BTC^[29]
Equivalent in USD: 15534 $
Equivalent in January 2014 BTC: 19.5 BTC
Transactions of interest:^[30]

266e4682abdf4932c4c271872ca9ba6bfdbe75941eb9ba4c4d81e4d3c7364e4b
40fc8f6b2f222fb2871a38a245132ed1eada9ff6aec8d46ebe74b29c64fd82a7
bf70ac1d2b702dbe0e14fbefb3a0cb2ff5ee5aa425cfe4249f16d6ede7b3ff14
92968a2331a02a3128460a64ba16fbf8d3a2fc79ebc8882300015d3ca0e4fb17

Similar to the Mooncoin Theft a year ago, and just as devastating, a gambling website's customers lost a large amount of money. This time, the owner took just as large a hit: all the deposits, plus non-live storage, were stolen. 2900 BTC remains to be refunded to creditors today.^[28]

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]
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:

Hacker unknown, minimal coins were returned.
Venture capital group Wendon Group threatened legal action against Bitcoinica Consultancy.
Receivership in New Zealand ongoing.

Amount:

Bitcoinica: Exactly 18547.66867623 BTC
Creditors of Bitcoinica: Pending liquidation
- BitMarket.Eu: About 19980 BTC

Total impact: At least 38527 BTC
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] 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:

Bitcoin Syndicate
- Paul Mumby
- Shareholders on GLBSE

Suspect: IP 130.83.54.115
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:

Bitcoinica, LLC
Creditors of Bitcoinica (former users of Bitcoinica)

Suspects:

Suspect	Accused by	Defended by	Additional evidence
Zhou Tong	AurumXChange Mt. Gox	Tihan Seale	Selling bitcoins after event
Chen Jinghai	Zhou Tong

Status: All funds returned
Amount: Exactly 40000.00000000 BTC^[33]
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:

Event	Time
Commencing	2012-07-31 00:07 (UTC)
Action taken	2012-07-31 06:30 (UTC)

Victim: btc-e.com
Suspects:

(unlikely) BTC-E chat user MrWubbles*
* Person has denied committing theft after initially pretending to do it. Evidence supports the faked theft admission as mere trolling.
(unlikely) BTC-E (accusation of inside job): Little evidence has been provided; as BTC-E reimbursed its customers, the only thing it could gain from faking the theft was PRand faking poor security is usually not considered useful PR.

Status: Pending
Amount: Estimate 4500 BTC^[34]
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, 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:

Alberto Armandi^[35]
- bitdaytrade @BitcoinTalk
- bitscalper @BitcoinTalk
- jjfarren @BitcoinTalk

Victim: Kronos.io investors (Brian Cartmell)^[36]
Status: Legal action possibly pending
Medium: Mt. Gox
Amount: Estimate 4000 BTC^[35]
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, a scam earlier that year.^[36]

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] 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]

Bitcoin Savings and Trust
Time: 20112012
Victim: Creditors of First Pirate Savings and Trust, later Bitcoin Savings and Trust
Status: Trendon Shavers (Perpetrator) caught by SEC^[38]
Amount: Lower bounds 150649 BTC^[38], 193319 BTC^[39], 200000 BTC^[40]; Estimate 263024 BTC^[41]; Upper bound >700467 BTC^[42]
Equivalent in USD: 2983473 $
Equivalent in January 2014 BTC: 3700 BTC
More information on Trendon Shavers default.

Bitfloor Theft
Time:

Event	Time
Theft Commences Transaction: #1	2012-09-04T03:07:39
Theft Continues Transaction: #2, #3	2012-09-04T03:12:52
Theft Culminates Transaction: #4, #5	2012-09-04T03:43:33

All times are blockchain time, and have possible error of up to 3 hours.
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]

83f3c30dc4fa25afe57b85651b9bbc372e8789d81b08d6966ea81f524e0a02be
d5d23a05858236c379d2aa30886b97600506933bc46c6f2aab2e05da85e61ad2
358c873892016649ace8e9db4c59f98a6ca8165287ac80e80c52e621f5a26e46
f9d55dc4b8af65e15f856496335a29e2be40f128a7374c75b75529e864579f93
42ea472060118ee5aee801cdedbc4a3403f3708a87340660f766e2669f0afeb0

Although the keys to the hot wallet of Bitfloor was secured, an unencrypted backup was mistakenly stored on some of the servers. After a hacker gained entry, most of not only the hot wallet but also the cold wallet was stolen. To this date, none of the coins have been returned by the hacker to Bitfloor. Although Bitfloor briefly shut down after the incident, it has since restarted and has committed to repaying its creditors.^[44] Unfortunately, Bitfloor's banks shut down the exchange's operation before all coins could be recouped.

Cdecker Theft
Time: September 28, 2012, 07:21:14 PM
Victim: Cdecker
Status: Thief IP may be 178.140.220.181^[45]
Amount: Exactly 9222.21195900 BTC
Equivalent in USD: 104607 $
Equivalent in January 2014 BTC: 130 BTC
Transactions of interest:

6f85951bcecbe64999ad192275af087c5be2922ee13937693992c1ddf9ae8ce6
8e6a2d0b8132d3d9edc1fcffe1b3079de59c10c67522e2abc51c1d84b260fdac

A supposedly long-time user of Bitcoin found his personal wallet emptied of a significant amount in late September 2012. Because far more severe personal thefts had occurred in the past, the theft went by without much incident.

2012 50BTC Theft
Date: 2012-10-13
Victim: 50BTC Mining Pool
Status: Unresolved.
Transactions of interest:^[46]

9dfdb24667657365c469ff20568fcc820f6f028a125d9c22dc521ae44dcf7c5e
bd2ad7b49c22d12cf2f8f12ef601952aed2a96907af4df732156fd90165b5ef5
d0035ad189634e90239cca82eb53f78e08c0179620b2bd24e2cb291478c7d57a
a2b642bafea45bc128d81314ef33542bc807811ba066329eaa1306bd62bec075

Amount: Exactly 1173.51659074 BTC
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]

2012 Trojan
Time:

Event	Time
Theft Commences Transaction: #1	2012-10-18 22:56:56
Theft Continues Transaction: #2, #3, #4, #5, #6, #7, #8, #9, #10	September, October and November 2012
Mralbi @BitcoinTalk theft Transaction: #11	2012-11-16 03:30:13
Theft Culminates Transaction: #12, #13	2012-11-16 03:30:13

Victim: Various, incl. Mralbi @BitcoinTalk
Status: Thief IP may be:

97.106.160.84
178.177.115.229

Amount:

Through blockchain: Exactly 3257.00000000 BTC +0.02450000 BTC tx fees
Through Mt. Gox: Lower Bound 200 BTC

Amount: About 3457 BTC
Equivalent in USD: 39146 $
Equivalent in January 2014 BTC: 49.1 BTC
Transactions of interest:
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A trojan horse stole thousands of BTC between September and November of 2012. BitcoinTalk user mralbi was a major victim, losing almost 2600 BTC.^[47] The same hacker also stole 200 BTC from Mt. Gox accounts, supposedly with the same trojan which doubled as a keylogger.

dree12 (OP)

Legendary

Offline

Activity: 1246
Merit: 1085

List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses [4]

April 19, 2014, 01:57:36 AM
Last edit: November 16, 2014, 12:00:39 AM by dree12

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]
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]
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 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]
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]
Equivalent in USD: 231440 $
Equivalent in January 2014 BTC: 284 BTC
A suspected long-running con likened to the infamous 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] 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]
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]

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]
Amount: Exactly 922.99063322 BTC^[56]
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]

cbce6bd1e274a9ea9d6946feaf4a1b0f80a5885a8482f4ebf3caa052f22bb4bf
85489430661f3041608749acb3019a1dcbf07a60f22e4bc43acfd05b46496cc9

Amount: Exactly 1454.01500000 BTC^[58]
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] 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]

James Howells Loss
Type: Loss
Date: July 2013^[60]
Victim: James Howells
Amount: Estimate 7500 BTC^[61]
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]

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]
Amount: Exactly 1300.15500000 BTC^[63]
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] 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:

2013-10-02: First seizure (Silk Road user funds)
2013-10-25: Second seizure (Ross Ulbricht's personal coins)

Victim: Silk Road, Ross Ulbricht, Silk Road users
Perpetrator: FBI seizure

Amount:

First seizure: 27618.69843217 BTC^[65]
Second seizure: 144336.39449470 BTC^[66]

Total: Exactly 171955.09292687 BTC
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] Although it operated under the jurisdiction of the United States, it made little attempt to comply with US law.^[68] 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] In the days ensuing, it seized a large portion of Ulbricht's personal wealth in addition to stored balances by Silk Road users.^[70] However, the FBI has yet to successfully seize an estimated remaining 400000 BTC in Ulbricht's personal wallet.^[71].

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]

GBL Scam
Time: Between May 2013 to October 2013
Date of shutdown: 2013-10-26^[73]
Victim: Chinese investors in GBL.
Amount: Estimate 22000 BTC^[73]
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] (disputed)
Victim: Inputs.io, passed on to creditors.
Perpetrator: Accusations of inside job.
Transaction of interest: 9536feebe3a50b94f85ca27d56e669a7209bd4188385d55c5b97227c95cf7f74^[75]
Amount: Estimate 4100 BTC^[76]
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]^[78] 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]
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]
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]
Amount: Exactly 484.76688536 BTC^[82]
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]
Amount: Exactly 1295.00000000 BTC^[82]
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]

d99281bae8acafc6c96cefb54d37f81e5f78898fd8ccb12493f89236bec476e6
28c9d7b0b31c9262958b88c42b1703098d44574e0830173c0b5cfe2a79490881

Amount: Exactly 5896.23098163 BTC^[82]
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]
Transactions of interest: Disputed
Amount: Estimate 5400 BTC^[85]
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]

dree12 (OP)

Legendary

Offline

Activity: 1246
Merit: 1085

List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses [5]

April 19, 2014, 01:57:53 AM
Last edit: November 16, 2014, 12:38:05 AM by dree12

Silk Road 2 Incident
NB: Not to be confused with the Silk Road Seizure.
Date: 2014-02-13
Victim: Silk Road 2 users
Perpetrator: Official story^[87] blames three attackers; many suspect an inside job.
Transactions of interest: See official statement.
Amount: Estimate 4400 BTC^[88]
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] 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]

2014 Mt. Gox Collapse
Date: Ongoing
Victim: Mt. Gox and users
Perpetrator: Unknown
Amount: Estimate 850000 BTC^[90]
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]
Transactions of interest:^[91]
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Amount: Exactly 896.10380000 BTC^[92]
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] Creditors were not reimbursed.

CryptoRush Theft
Date: 2014-03-11^[93]
Victim: CryptoRush (alternative cryptocurrency exchange) and users
Perpetrator: Identified as an IP from Ukraine.
Amount: About 950 BTC^[93]
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]

MintPal Incident
Date: 2014-10-14^[94]
Victim: MintPal users
Perpetrator: Likely Alex Green^[95]
Amount: Lower bound 3894.49250000 BTC^[94]
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.

dree12 (OP)

Legendary

Offline

Activity: 1246
Merit: 1085

List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses [6]

April 19, 2014, 01:58:23 AM

This post is reserved.

dree12 (OP)

Legendary

Offline

Activity: 1246
Merit: 1085

List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses [7]

April 19, 2014, 01:58:37 AM

This post is reserved.

dree12 (OP)

Legendary

Offline

Activity: 1246
Merit: 1085

List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses [8]

April 19, 2014, 01:58:53 AM
Last edit: November 16, 2014, 12:38:40 AM by dree12

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.

World Bitcoin Exchange, due to fraudulent activity, stole over 5000 BTC worth at the time in AUD. The total amount stolen was 25779.49 AUD. More information: https://bt.irlbtc.com/view/65867.msg923845#msg923845
Tradehill was repeatedly hassled by Dwolla, and eventually dropped support after being scammed off 17000 USD. Later fraudulent transactions ended up costing the exchange even more, and after the March 2012 Linode Hacks they shut down, citing 100000 USD stolen or scammed through fraud.

Minor but notable thefts
Other thefts are minor, but are unique in some manner (for example, interesting methods or a first of its kind).

First recorded physical theft of bitcoins: https://bt.irlbtc.com/view/52206.0
Coordinated hacking of BitcoinTalk accounts allowed theft of many loaned bitcoins: https://bt.irlbtc.com/view/61500.0
Bitcointalk.org user Goat lost 400 BTC through sending to a wrong address. These bitcoins were later recovered: https://bt.irlbtc.com/view/82600.0

Other thefts outside the scope of this list
Too small
The thefts below, based on all available estimates, are absolutely below the requisite margin and cannot be included on this list.

Polish exchange http://bidextreme.pl/: 170 BTC^[96]
Mining pool http://bitclockers.com/: Exact amount indeterminate; but lack of public outrage suggests it was not very high.
Exchange Bitcoin2Cash: 100 BTC^[97]

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.

Pony Botnet ^[98]
While it is conceivable that it has continued to steal digital currency, the amount given in the article is stated as an upper bound, and also includes unrelated digital currencies. Best estimates place amount stolen at 450 BTC.

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.

Everydice, which currently does not meet the lower bound, may reach it if the site owners disappear.^[99]

References & Footnotes

^[1]: Exchange rate data is mainly from Bitstamp and inflation data mainly from the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics. More precisely, Mt. Gox price data is used up until 2013-06-09, but Bitstamp price data is used starting from 2013-06-10. US CPI data published by the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics is used throughout.
^[2]: Note on the inclusion of this scam: Evidence suggests that the founder withheld information from investors, such as the fact that he was a minor. Although a portion of the losses can be attributed to incompetence, there is significant reason to believe that the founder kept a significant chunk of the invested funds to himself.
^[3]: Amount invested into Ubitex on GLBSE.
^[4]: Olivia Solon, Founder reflects on the closure of Bitcoin stock exchange GLBSE.
^[5]: Wired Magazine The Rise and Fall of Bitcoin.
^[6]: Ten minutes, or 600 seconds, represents Satoshi's estimated block transmission time.
^[7]: Allinvain's personal account.
^[8]: Mt. Gox official press release.
^[9]: Admission by BitcoinTalk user toasty.
^[10]: Daily Tech, recap of the incident.
^[11]: Signed message by MyBitcoin operator Tom Williams.
^[12]: Blockchain.info.
^[13]: This was the official estimate, which is likely inexact (potentially a lower bound). Since no transaction took place, there was no record on the Blockchain.
^[14]: This is a conservative estimate based on the values of SolidCoin lost, and assuming that the values of Bitcoin lost resembled those.
^[15]: Official statement by Bitcoin7 owners in a listing to sell the code behind Bitcoin7.
^[16]: Initial official statement by Bitcoin7, quoted by Stephen Gornick and retrieved on BitcoinTalk.
^[17]: 5000 BTC is almost certainly a low estimate, as the source is a listing that promotes the successes of Bitcoin7 and fails to acknowledge the severity of the theft. If Bitcoin7 disappeared, then the value should be bounded above by 15000 BTC, which is based on the size of order books at the time.
^[18]: Note on the inclusion of this scam: Bitscalper was a Ponzi scheme, paying investors with other investor money, and failed to disclose such.
^[19]: Brief textual analysis conducted specifically for this list.
^[20]: Note on the inclusion of this scam: Although initial business failures are a result of incompetence, Andrew Nollan later failed to communicate professionally with investors, and thereafter disappeared, indicating that investor losses were at least partially due to Nollan's intent or negligence.
^[21]: Shakaru's DeviantArt account.
^[22]: Google Docs document.
^[23]: Bitcoinica's official statement.
^[24]: Marek Palatinus's account.
^[25]: Gavin Andresen's account.
^[26]: Blockchain.info transaction.
^[27]: Linode official statement.
^[28]: Official post-mortem report.
^[29]: Blockchain.info address listing.
^[30]: Official account; source for destination address.
^[31]: Account of a Silk Road user.
^[32]: Official statement by BitMarket.eu.
^[33]: This was the Mt. Gox daily limit for withdrawals.
^[34]: Official estimate.
^[35]: Statement by former GLBSE operator Nefario, quoted by Bjork @BitcoinTalk.
^[36]: Statement by Matthew Neal Wright in email response.
^[37]: Alberto Armandi's story blaming Jonathon Ryan Owens.
^[38]: Texan charged in ponzi scheme (Zerohedge.com)
^[39]: Calculation based on 700467 BTC raised and 507148 BTC paid out.
^[40]: Blockchain analysis by BitcoinTalk moderator.
^[41]: Daphne P. Downes of SEC, civil action.
^[42]: SEC litigation.
^[43]: Bitfloor analysis.
^[44]: Bitfloor official announcement.
^[45]: Personal account by victim.
^[46]: 50BTC Official Statement.
^[47]: User mralbi's personal report.
^[48]: Internet Archive archive of Bit LC press release.
^[49]: IRC conversation.
^[50]: Mining cost of 748.18715667 BTC and OKPay double spend of 211.90930000 BTC.
^[51]: Analysis conducted specifically for this list.
^[52]: Leandro César, Problema do Mercado Bitcoin.
^[53]: Analysis conducted specifically for this list.
^[54]: Selected example of paranoia on Reddit.
^[55]: Vitalik Buterin, Bitcoin Magazine.
^[56]: Address 16cDeEFn6sraUEJrDCt2Yg3r7j2oazSYEd
^[57]: Vircurex May 2013 Report.
^[58]: Amount sent to thief addresses: 1454.00000000 BTC
Total transaction fees incurred: 0.01500000 BTC
^[59]: Official statement by Vircurex in March 2014.
^[60]: I don't have an exact date, the only time period I can give and I've been racking my own brains is between 20 June and 10 August. Probably mid-July., quoted from James Howells and reported by the Guardian.
^[61]: The Guardian.
^[62]: This was an intentional transaction, which was a legitimate withdrawal. However, although it was sent, the site database was not updated to reflect the changed balances, causing the incident.
^[63]: Just-Dice database of debits and credits.
^[64]: Coindesk article.
^[65]: Total sent to 1F1tAaz5x1HUXrCNLbtMDqcw6o5GNn4xqX, excluding dust sent ex post facto as blockchain graffiti.
^[66]: Total sent to 1FfmbHfnpaZjKFvyi1okTjJJusN455paPH, excluding dust sent ex post facto as blockchain graffiti.
^[67]: Adrian Chen, kotaku.com.
^[68]: United States' criminal complaint.
^[69]: Emily Flitter, Reuters.
^[70]: James Ball, The Guardian.
^[71]: Alex Hern, The Guardian.
^[72]: Associated Press.
^[73]: Kadhim Shubbe, $4.1m goes missing as Chinese bitcoin trading platform GBL vanishes.
^[74]: Statement by TradeFortress.
^[75]: Statement by TradeFortress.
^[76]: Official statement.
^[77]: Accusation by BitcoinTalk user webr3.
^[78]: Accusation by BitcoinTalk user MoneypakTrader.com.
^[79]: Bitcointalk post.
^[80]: Trust ratings for creativex, representing leftover assets for the company.
^[81]: Analysis by Ale Janda, reported by CoinDesk.com.
^[82]: Blockchain. (This information was obtained directly from the Bitcoin blockchain by looking up the transaction or transactions listed in the entry.)
^[83]: Statement by BitcoinTalk user and BIPS operator Kris.
^[84]: Statement by BitcoinTalk user tytus, who is likely to be a founder of PicoStocks.
^[85]: The Guardian on December 3, 2013.
^[86]: The Guardian on December 9, 2013.
^[87]: Official signed statement from Defcon, operator of Silk Road 2.
^[88]: Nicholas Weaver's estimate, quoted in Forbes.
^[89]: Alex Richardson, Silk Road 2.0 making users whole after hack.
^[90]: Tim Hornyak, Despite Mt. Gox fiasco, Karpeles still has Bitcoin plans.
^[91]: Official statement from Flexcoin.
^[92]: Sent to 1QFcC5JitGwpFKqRDd9QNH3eGN56dCNgy6: 304.00000000 BTC
Sent to 1NDkevapt4SWYFEmquCDBSf7DLMTNVggdu: 592.10000000 BTC
Transaction fees incurred in sending: 0.00380000 BTC
^[93]: Leak of information apropos the CryptoRush situation by DogeyMcDoge, support employee at CryptoRush.
^[94]: MintPal cold wallet account ledger.
^[95]: Clay Michael Gillespie, MintPal's 3700 Stolen Bitcoin Likely in Hands of Alleged Scammer Alex Green
^[96]: (Archived) Update posted by the exchange.
^[97]: Statement by operator.
^[98]: Pete Rizzo, Pony Botnet Virus Steals $220,000 from 30 Types of Digital Wallets.
^[99]: Update from Everydice developer.

Credits
Thanks to the following who generously wrote commentary:

Jennifer Pippin (Linode Hacks)

Thanks to the following who suggested or clarified incidents:

Stephen Gornick
Patrick Harnett
Chris Moore
Paul Mumby
Blitz @BitcoinTalk
cypherdoc @BitcoinTalk
freedomno1 @BitcoinTalk
LoweryCBS @BitcoinTalk
lunarboy @BitcoinTalk
malevolent @BitcoinTalk
pankkake @BitcoinTalk
repentance @BitcoinTalk
rudrigorc2 @BitcoinTalk
Shermo @BitcoinTalk
timegrinder @BitcoinTalk

dree12 (OP)

Legendary

Offline

Activity: 1246
Merit: 1085

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

April 19, 2014, 02:11:17 AM
Last edit: April 19, 2014, 03:13:34 AM by dree12

So, an update from the last thread:

Since the last thread was full, I moved everything to this new thread. Now 8 posts are reserved and if necessary I can consume this post.
I added the backlog of thefts that were delayed due partially to space limitations and mostly to my personal time limitations. Some are still missing because I need to research them more. They will be added in due time.
The rankings were originally done manually, which is becoming difficult as the list grows. Hence I have begun work on an automatic ranker. This should be finished soon, but given my propensity for delaying things, it probably will not be. In the coming weeks I will also move from June 2013 BTC to a more recent standard.

Thank you to those who kept me updated!

Things left on the backlog waiting for more research:

GBL
Bitclockers.com
Pony botnet
Cryptorush
Neo & Bee

(By the way: Feel free to reply now; the number of posts reserved is plenty.)

iluvpie60

Hero Member

Offline

Activity: 700
Merit: 500

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

April 19, 2014, 04:29:57 AM

#10

Quote from: dree12 on April 19, 2014, 02:11:17 AM

So, an update from the last thread:

Since the last thread was full, I moved everything to this new thread. Now 8 posts are reserved and if necessary I can consume this post.
I added the backlog of thefts that were delayed due partially to space limitations and mostly to my personal time limitations. Some are still missing because I need to research them more. They will be added in due time.
The rankings were originally done manually, which is becoming difficult as the list grows. Hence I have begun work on an automatic ranker. This should be finished soon, but given my propensity for delaying things, it probably will not be. In the coming weeks I will also move from June 2013 BTC to a more recent standard.

Thank you to those who kept me updated!

Things left on the backlog waiting for more research:

GBL
Bitclockers.com
Pony botnet
Cryptorush
Neo & Bee

(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.

dree12 (OP)

Legendary

Offline

Activity: 1246
Merit: 1085

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

April 19, 2014, 05:01:09 PM

#11

Quote from: iluvpie60 on April 19, 2014, 04:29:57 AM

Quote from: dree12 on April 19, 2014, 02:11:17 AM

So, an update from the last thread:

Since the last thread was full, I moved everything to this new thread. Now 8 posts are reserved and if necessary I can consume this post.
I added the backlog of thefts that were delayed due partially to space limitations and mostly to my personal time limitations. Some are still missing because I need to research them more. They will be added in due time.
The rankings were originally done manually, which is becoming difficult as the list grows. Hence I have begun work on an automatic ranker. This should be finished soon, but given my propensity for delaying things, it probably will not be. In the coming weeks I will also move from June 2013 BTC to a more recent standard.

Thank you to those who kept me updated!

Things left on the backlog waiting for more research:

GBL
Bitclockers.com
Pony botnet
Cryptorush
Neo & Bee

(By the way: Feel free to reply now; the number of posts reserved is plenty.)

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.

malevolent

can into space
Legendary

Offline

Activity: 3472
Merit: 1728

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

April 29, 2014, 06:44:03 PM

#12

You forgot about Bitcoin to Cash:
https://bt.irlbtc.com/view/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.

Signature space available for rent.

CoinHeavy

Full Member

Offline

Activity: 221
Merit: 100

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

April 30, 2014, 11:46:27 AM

#13

Incredible history you have compiled. Many thanks for sharing.

IIOII

Legendary

Offline

Activity: 1153
Merit: 1012

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

April 30, 2014, 12:51:25 PM

#14

Quote from: malevolent on April 29, 2014, 06:44:03 PM

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://bt.irlbtc.com/view/88803.0
https://bt.irlbtc.com/view/93445.0

FFrost

Full Member

Offline

Activity: 224
Merit: 100

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

May 01, 2014, 03:08:33 PM

#15

Very Interesting read. Opened my eyes a bit!

C.Steven

Hero Member

Offline

Activity: 632
Merit: 500

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

May 01, 2014, 03:12:05 PM

#16

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.

PRIMEDICE

.
The Premier Bitcoin Gambling Experience
Most Trusted & Popular | Active Chat & Community | Free BTC Faucet | 1% Edge

beescrow

Newbie

Offline

Activity: 7
Merit: 0

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

May 01, 2014, 03:12:30 PM

#17

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...