Topic: List of Major Bitcoin Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses - page 12. (Read 87594 times)
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This post is reserved.
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 Unfortunately, the codebase behind the exchange was out of date and poorly-written.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]
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.
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]
- a1b887233c06490fbdeb2c8779fd47e1f93a68d16928766d45879dcfc39571e2
- e03686a33aacbd462cb0a64345513dfb6c20a442a4cc651e5e2eaeca54bfe0f7
- 4811e548e7f2cb3785c30daecafcb4bffa239da7228a13ee48f1226f179f0cec
- 00e2b00fb3c5cf2edb71c8f4a856111e614c3681503c583eab84cd67a2850ef9
- b21e9bee8a9bfe040b8bfde23c6ba26e345b22581cb96f5af8b6fcbf6579a075
- fde8ae93bb8fe82583dd9bc94528b07eebddf7257d30b7d25a1e4726948fa466
- ebc684fd60f537d26fb82e26aeb4e2f00bf570ca1fd2eb2052eb10487be465ee
- 90908281e8a6039569e83c6b28b3a8ea582c6d9b9bd58f66962bca6918c49e1d
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.
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]
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:
Perpetrator: FBI seizure
Amount:
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]
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]
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
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)
Perpetrator: FBI seizure
Amount:
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
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]
Bitscalper Scam[18]
Time: January 2012 to March 2012
Suspects:
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:
Equivalent in January 2014 BTC: 282 BTC
Transactions of interest:
Betcoin Theft
Time:
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]
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:
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:
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:
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:
Victim: btc-e.com
Suspects:
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:
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: 2011–2012
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:
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]
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:
2012 50BTC Theft
Date: 2012-10-13
Victim: 50BTC Mining Pool
Status: Unresolved.
Transactions of interest:[46]
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:
Victim: Various, incl. Mralbi @BitcoinTalk
Status: Thief IP may be:
Equivalent in USD: 39146 $
Equivalent in January 2014 BTC: 49.1 BTC
Transactions of interest:
Time: January 2012 to March 2012
Suspects:
- Alberto Armandi
- bitdaytrade @BitcoinTalk
- bitscalper @BitcoinTalk
- jjfarren @BitcoinTalk
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 January 2014 BTC: 282 BTC
Transactions of interest:
- 5a09f4ef0e91bc7bc044365cd27236fe4ac3c02088ac21ab51c93c8a11d33d4b
- 7b45c1742ca9f544cccd92d319ef8a5e19b7dcb8742990724c6a9c2f569ae732
- 901dbcef30a541b8b55fae8f7ad9917ef0754bda5b643705f3773e590785c4d3
- a57132e2cbc580ac262aa3f7bac1e441d6573f9633118bc48009618585a0967e
- a82ad85286c68f37a2feda1f5e8a4efa9db1e642b4ef53cb9fd86170169e5e68
- ff04763e3e8c93e43799dbbca833e183faad7e2611f20f136f47c2f1049481ae
- 0268b7285b95444808753969099f7ae43fb4193d442e3e0deebb10e2bb1764d0
- 34b84108a142ad7b6c36f0f3549a3e83dcdbb60e0ba0df96cd48f852da0b1acb
- 14350f6f2bda8f4220f5b5e11022ab126a4b178e5c4fca38c6e0deb242c40c5f[25]
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 |
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
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.
- Bitcoinica: Exactly 18547.66867623 BTC
- Creditors of Bitcoinica: Pending liquidation
- BitMarket.Eu: About 19980 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
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)
| Suspect | Accused by | Defended by | Additional evidence |
| Zhou Tong | AurumXChange Mt. Gox | Tihan Seale | Selling bitcoins after event |
| Chen Jinghai | Zhou Tong |
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) |
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 PR—and faking poor security is usually not considered useful PR.
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
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: 2011–2012
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 |
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
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
2012 50BTC Theft
Date: 2012-10-13
Victim: 50BTC Mining Pool
Status: Unresolved.
Transactions of interest:[46]
- 9dfdb24667657365c469ff20568fcc820f6f028a125d9c22dc521ae44dcf7c5e
- bd2ad7b49c22d12cf2f8f12ef601952aed2a96907af4df732156fd90165b5ef5
- d0035ad189634e90239cca82eb53f78e08c0179620b2bd24e2cb291478c7d57a
- a2b642bafea45bc128d81314ef33542bc807811ba066329eaa1306bd62bec075
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 |
Status: Thief IP may be:
- 97.106.160.84
- 178.177.115.229
- Through blockchain: Exactly 3257.00000000 BTC +0.02450000 BTC tx fees
- Through Mt. Gox: Lower Bound 200 BTC
Equivalent in USD: 39146 $
Equivalent in January 2014 BTC: 49.1 BTC
Transactions of interest:
- 04e378f81eb620f21927639cd4cda00e0473ca958f4d21f2255f37554b5440fa
- 065e7ff6b1503fc023876ffe930dcd9866531812e40bbda72835f232c2f23910
- 0723b67631588b6d5a4a406a9ef8d431c0d5282c6f1cb308fef57c7503d83158
- 0ae924c33555b294a3f0b256da6a02ab996d30be00eaf184d53281009a3a50d6
- 3f938408deb6d20a74f6256d3ba0217df266450d4c00c40d94df7b840f66db05
- 9766b624e004ad1a9369b1b461d33f57e7dddabb43942d34ac10e912cd9ce36b
- 2db76ebd4b5eecf008334d1bdc1f63f764ca3fb9275557a2a82d52ebf52eea9f
- c041a74fd565c3eb247ff4b1fb6eb0ab9299c3e7d58e5172c28cbe9540858d5a
- 82719bedd0730511385faf68d88b9a03e269a40e3fa5f269efe4a9fc3a821f7f
- 2bc69aa29f56d7051f9cb19bf923c5e2a81879b4f6a3bc849f4166f56d417c2a
- 8d6602b0e8e4479d79e5dab0c35bdb4f7545513cb426411348ec1502413a8f80
- 3a66ebef43041f230e799f1efd3a93e41f875c718da683e236632e13a70cf898
- 0197692748ba894697a0a48fdfdb3e72f3275b079005efad8be062de38b65edf
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 backups—many 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:
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:
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:
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 backups—many 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:
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.
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:
- 111291fcf8ab84803d42ec59cb4eaceadd661185242a1e8f4b7e49b79ecbe5f3
- 81f591582b436c5b129f347fe7e681afd6811417973c4a4f83b18e92a9d130fd
- ddddf9f04b4c1d4e1185cacf5cf302f3d11dee5d74f71721d741fbb507062e9e
- 305fbc2ec7f7f2bc5a21d2dfb01a5fc52ab5d064a7278e2ecbab0d2a27b8c392
- f0137a6b31947cf7ab367ae23942a263272c41f36252fcd3460ee8b6e94a84c1
- 633acf266c913523ab5ed9fcc4632bae18d2a7efc1744fd43dd669e5f2869ce5
- 5bd88ab32b50e4a691dcfd1fff9396f512e003d7275bb5c1b816ab071beca5ba
- 64c01fedd5cf6d306ca18d85e842f068e19488126c411741e089be8f4052df09
- 3be0ac3dc1c3b7fa7fbe34f4678037ed733a14e801abe6d3da42bc643a651401
- 9edab6e7fadf1d6006315ff9394c08a7bf42e19cf61502200a1f73994f8da94b
- 835d4dcc52e160c23173658de0b747082f1937d1184e8e1838e9394bc62c0392
- aebe39a99114f1b46fc5a67289545e54cbfec92d08fc8ffc92dc9df4a15ea05a
- aa62bdd690de061a6fbbd88420f7a7aa574ba86da4fe82edc27e2263f8743988
- 6a86e6a5e8d5f9e9492114dafe5056c5618222f5042408ad867d3c1888855a31
- 7ad47a19b201ce052f98161de1b1457bacaca2e698f542e196d4c7f8f45899ab
- 0ca7f7299dc8d87c26c82badf9a303049098af050698c694fbec35c4b08fc3df
- 3ab5f53978850413a273920bfc86f4278d9c418272accddade736990d60bdd53
- 03acfae47d1e0b7674f1193237099d1553d3d8a93ecc85c18c4bec37544fe386
- 15ad0894ab42a46eb04108fb8bd66786566a74356d2103f077710733e0516c3a
- 2d00ef4895f20904d7d4c0bada17a8e9d47d6c049cd2e5002f8914bfa7f1d27b
- 6d39eeb2ae7f9d42b0569cf1009de4c9f031450873bf2ec84ce795837482e7a6
- 07d33c8c74e945c50e45d3eaf4add7553534154503a478cf6d48e1c617b3f9f3
- 6d5088c138e2fbf4ea7a8c2cb1b57a76c4b0a5fab5f4c188696aad807a5ba6d8
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
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:
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.
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.
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
- Stone Man Loss
- Ubitex Scam
- Stefan Thomas Loss
- Allinvain Theft
- June 2011 Mt. Gox Incident
- Mass MyBitcoin Thefts
- MyBitcoin Theft
- Bitomat.pl Loss
- Mooncoin Theft
- Bitcoin7 Incident
- October 2011 Mt. Gox Loss
- Bitscalper Scam
- Andrew Nollan Scam
- Linode Hacks
- Betcoin Theft
- Tony Silk Road Scam
- May 2012 Bitcoinica Hack
- Bitcoin Syndicate Theft
- July 2012 Bitcoinica Theft
- BTC-E Hack
- Kronos Hack
- Bitcoin Savings and Trust
- Bitfloor Theft
- Cdecker Theft
- 2012 50BTC Theft
- 2012 Trojan
- Bit LC Theft
- BTCGuild Incident
- 2013 Fork
- Bitcoin Rain
- ZigGap
- Ozcoin Theft
- Vircurex Theft
- James Howells Loss
- Just Dice Incident
- Silk Road Seizure
- GBL Scam
- Inputs.io Hack
- BASIC-MINING
- Bitcash.cz Hack
- BIPS Hack
- PicoStocks Hack
- Sheep Marketplace Incident
- Silk Road 2 Incident
- 2014 Mt. Gox Collapse
- Flexcoin Theft
- CryptoRush Theft
- MintPal Incident
- Thefts not included
- 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 includes pass-through impact
Major (≥1 kBTC)
Borderline (<1 kBTC)
| Rank | Name | Time | Severity |
| 1 | Bitcoin Savings and Trust | 2011–2012 | 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 |
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 | 2011–2013 | 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 |
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