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Topic: Stake.com Hot wallet robbed for 40Million + usd (Confirmed by stake) (Read 744 times)

legendary
Activity: 1078
Merit: 1022
Hello Leo! You can still win.
Today stake released premonthly for every VIP user.

I was  VERY surprised when  i saw  it, since its easily few million dollars for them that they dont need  to give to users, especially after double monthly bonus in august due  to their birthday.

This just proves that stake is  undisputed #1  right  now atleast based on revenue/profits.

They can still afford to give these  bonuses to users inspite of losing 40+ million, I  have no doubt most other sportsbooks would shut down or try to recoup  their losses by cutting back on promotions etc

That is one of the many profits people enjoy when they play with a reputable and trusted casino.  If this hack had happened to a relatively new and unpopular casino, it would have been an exit door for them. Even when  they do not want to exit, the pressure from the media and the users will throw them into more problems. But with stake, see how calm the environment remained and I bet you that many people that plays with Stake.com doesn't know that they were hacked. This is because there is no panic or prolonged pause of withdrawal   .This is an example that building reputation is very necessary in the gambling business.

I have read somewhere about stake transactions running in billions, the 40 million lost is something that will not take Stake so long to recover because they are much rooted in the business. But then they should have ways to mitigate such occurrences in the future. In as much as it's not affecting them, hacks depict vulnerability which is not a good thing.
full member
Activity: 448
Merit: 222
Damn, looks like a hack. If it was an inside transfer, they'd probably confirm it by now, no?

I don't know how much money they're working with on a daily basis, but 40 mil on hot wallets? Looks like way too much.

yes, just see the high rollers on their website, which are wagering in hundred thousands and in millions per bet, so you can imagine how big the stake platform is became now Shocked Shocked
I am not a developer and know very less about coding or hacking. but stake seems very high security casino it's is hard to believe that they also got hacked.
full member
Activity: 886
Merit: 151
Today stake released premonthly for every VIP user.

I was  VERY surprised when  i saw  it, since its easily few million dollars for them that they dont need  to give to users, especially after double monthly bonus in august due  to their birthday.

This just proves that stake is  undisputed #1  right  now atleast based on revenue/profits.

They can still afford to give these  bonuses to users inspite of losing 40+ million, I  have no doubt most other sportsbooks would shut down or try to recoup  their losses by cutting back on promotions etc
legendary
Activity: 2828
Merit: 1497
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Seems that the owner Eddie had made a statement about what had transpired during the recent events of the hack of those wallets and had indeed confirmed it was the hackers Lazarus Group from North Korea who were traced by the FBI:
"Despite a sophisticated attack on Stake by North Korean cyber actors (As confirmed by the FBI), operations are completely unaffected. Thank you to the talented & resilient team. I've shared more information in my recent Medium post."
source: https://twitter.com/StakeEddie/status/1700062420813922760

It is all in described in detail on this interview from a post on medium a couple of days ago
https://medium.com/@edcraven22/always-moving-forward-reflections-on-the-recent-stake-com-exploit-431105710a2e

legendary
Activity: 2828
Merit: 6108
Jambler.io
Stake pays Drake $100m a year for endorsements, Everton £10m for shirt sponsorships, and was keen in securing a £40m per shirt deal with Chelsea a few months ago until the deal fell through. Why would a casino with a profit of less than $100m, according to your calculations, be able to carry out such a massive commitment? Not to mention the Adesenya and Aguero deals. Something isn't right

One doesn't exclude the other.
Even large companies usually spend more on advertising than they have profit, and this goes to the extreme when your whole business is dependent on bringing and keeping players. Just for fun, if we compare with Procter & Gamble which doesn't have to fight that seriously to keep people from using their shampoo, right? , lol, we're looking at 8 billion in advertising at an annual revenue of 80 billion, probably taking somewhere at 20% as most digital brands do that would make a 400 million budget realistic.

Maybe Stake would be doing better but you do realize that if Stake would be making more money than the rest it would mean people would be earning less and lose more which wouldn't really make it as attractive as it is now, right?

Isn't the profit part the part they want to keep as low as possible for tax reasons, even when the revenue is very high? Only 2% of the revenue as profit is a lot less than I would have expected.

Profit before tax, this is where the accounting tricks begin, as you can't really fake the previous numbers when your whole business is online and in Betfair's case you only take digital centralized payments, with crypto you can shuffle a bit but with a card and wire transfers is just a no go. The margin is nearly the same for everyone bet365 is at 60million in profits at 3.5 billion in revenue.

hero member
Activity: 1643
Merit: 683
LoyceV on the road. Or couch.
2.6 billion in revenue, not profit!
Betfair had 4.8 billion in revenue with a pretax profit of 83 million, so if we keep the same ratios that would be a year running for nothing!
Isn't the profit part the part they want to keep as low as possible for tax reasons, even when the revenue is very high? Only 2% of the revenue as profit is a lot less than I would have expected.
staff
Activity: 1316
Merit: 1610
The Naija & BSFL Sherrif 📛
Stake pays Drake $100m a year for endorsements, Everton £10m for shirt sponsorships, and was keen in securing a £40m per shirt deal with Chelsea a few months ago until the deal fell through. Why would a casino with a profit of less than $100m, according to your calculations, be able to carry out such a massive commitment? Not to mention the Adesenya and Aguero deals. Something isn't right

How much you pay for something should never be taken as an estimate on how much your profit is.
If they estimate that they will earn 103 million from 100 million Drake endorsement, they will do it. The fact that they do have 100 mil for an endorsement does not mean that they have cash to throw away, or that their profit is in trillions.

In this example, a 100 mil in capital is used to accrue only 3 mil in profit - and a lot of companies will accept a 3% ROI on such investments.

We're on the same page, and a good business only puts its eggs where they can make a profit. Only new projects invest heavily in marketing, even if they do not earn, in order to promote their brand. Stake is one of the largest crypto casinos, and they aren't putting out millions to achieve popularity (they already have), but to make money. Nobody is claiming that the money they lost is little, but it is not the kind of money that will keep them out of business for even an hour.
legendary
Activity: 2226
Merit: 1571
'Bitcoins are like gold bars with wings' - T.W.
Stake pays Drake $100m a year for endorsements, Everton £10m for shirt sponsorships, and was keen in securing a £40m per shirt deal with Chelsea a few months ago until the deal fell through. Why would a casino with a profit of less than $100m, according to your calculations, be able to carry out such a massive commitment? Not to mention the Adesenya and Aguero deals. Something isn't right

How much you pay for something should never be taken as an estimate on how much your profit is.
If they estimate that they will earn 103 million from 100 million Drake endorsement, they will do it. The fact that they do have 100 mil for an endorsement does not mean that they have cash to throw away, or that their profit is in trillions.

In this example, a 100 mil in capital is used to accrue only 3 mil in profit - and a lot of companies will accept a 3% ROI on such investments.

________________________________________

Not saying this is the case with Stake, they can of course have incredibly high profits and 50x return on their endorsements. I'm just trying to explain that the fact that they have 100+ mil to 'throw away' does not necessarily mean that 40 mil is pennies for them.
40 mil hurts anybody - it's a huge amount of money.
staff
Activity: 1316
Merit: 1610
The Naija & BSFL Sherrif 📛
Stake made $2.6b in revenue last year so $40m is drop in the ocean for Ed.

2.6 billion in revenue, not profit!
Betfair had 4.8 billion in revenue with a pretax profit of 83 million, so if we keep the same ratios that would be a year running for nothing!

Stake pays Drake $100m a year for endorsements, Everton £10m for shirt sponsorships, and was keen in securing a £40m per shirt deal with Chelsea a few months ago until the deal fell through. Why would a casino with a profit of less than $100m, according to your calculations, be able to carry out such a massive commitment? Not to mention the Adesenya and Aguero deals. Something isn't right
hero member
Activity: 1428
Merit: 836
Top Crypto Casino
They identified the hackers as a known organisation from north korea,
...
I still however am skeptical that this happened without any inside access , also shows how big stake is now that fbi is involved so fast, especially because stake.com does not operate in US and the hackers arent from US either, allegedly.
They have Stake.Us domain for US users since it falls on  the same company, then FBI could handle it but accusing the those org from north korea again for this, i don't think some of it can be recovered especially the non-USD pegged coins that were hacked.
legendary
Activity: 2828
Merit: 6108
Jambler.io
Stake made $2.6b in revenue last year so $40m is drop in the ocean for Ed.

2.6 billion in revenue, not profit!
Betfair had 4.8 billion in revenue with a pretax profit of 83 million, so if we keep the same ratios that would be a year running for nothing!

It's completely feasible. There are only a handful of BSC "nodes" (if you can even call them that), and all of them are owned and operated by Binance. Binance can do anything they like with the BSC network and all the assets on it. Reverse transactions, seize coins, burn coins, shut the whole thing down.

This is terrifying; you've just destroyed my affection for the BUSD token and the entire BSC Blockchain. Well, I'm not certain the hackers are stupid enough to leave those coins in the BSC Blockchain knowing they could be reversed or frozen..

Why are you surprised by this?
CZ wanted to do that with Bitcoin when Binance lost money, do you honestly think a control freak like him would really allow a truly decentralized coin with his name on it to be the backbone of his business? I'm pretty sure he would fork it at the first sign he is about to lose total control over it.


full member
Activity: 886
Merit: 151
FBI posted an update regarding this

https://www.fbi.gov/news/press-releases/fbi-identifies-lazarus-group-cyber-actors-as-responsible-for-theft-of-41-million-from-stakecom

They identified the hackers as a known organisation from north korea,

I still however am skeptical that this happened without any inside access , also shows how big stake is now that fbi is involved so fast, especially because stake.com does not operate in US and the hackers arent from US either, allegedly.
full member
Activity: 2240
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I just hope Stake gives us more information so we can stop speculating.



I don't think they will give more They already assured users funds and internal investigations will be kept confidential Stakes will never announce any information that will compromise the site security and reputation in fact they want to kill the news and they want to treat it as minor problems, the amount is just pocket change, small casinos with that amount will announced bankruptcy but with Stake's status its back to normal.
hero member
Activity: 1260
Merit: 515
I just hope Stake gives us more information so we can stop speculating.

It's to their disadvantage if they show or tell us it's because of negligence, We expect them to have tight security, so they will pick the right words that are acceptable to the community and stakeholders but they will keep the real picture onto themselves, until one of them spill it.
The whole gambling community is looking at how they handle it as long as they ensure that their users' funds are safe and they are good, there's no need to panic.

Stake probably prefers that we merely speculate on this while facts are kept hidden from anybody. They won't be speaking about this as much as possible. That's bad for business. They have already issued assurances that user funds are safe. That's enough. So, from this moment forward they would act as if nothing has happened. Business as usual. The smoke will eventually die down. It's enough that they report of an "unauthorized transactions."

Yes, they even said that this is only a small amount, but it's scary to think that now we have heard a top crypto gambling website being attack by hackers, whether it was state sponsored attack or just some random guy in the basement of their parents.

Nevertheless, another lesson from all of us, although funds are safe, still we can't just leave anything in any platforms that involves our crypto. And as far as Stake goes, this is already a close case.
legendary
Activity: 2562
Merit: 1854
🙏🏼Padayon...🙏
I just hope Stake gives us more information so we can stop speculating.

It's to their disadvantage if they show or tell us it's because of negligence, We expect them to have tight security, so they will pick the right words that are acceptable to the community and stakeholders but they will keep the real picture onto themselves, until one of them spill it.
The whole gambling community is looking at how they handle it as long as they ensure that their users' funds are safe and they are good, there's no need to panic.

Stake probably prefers that we merely speculate on this while facts are kept hidden from anybody. They won't be speaking about this as much as possible. That's bad for business. They have already issued assurances that user funds are safe. That's enough. So, from this moment forward they would act as if nothing has happened. Business as usual. The smoke will eventually die down. It's enough that they report of an "unauthorized transactions."
legendary
Activity: 3192
Merit: 1198
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I just hope Stake gives us more information so we can stop speculating.



It's to their disadvantage if they show or tell us it's because of negligence, We expect them to have tight security, so they will pick the right words that are acceptable to the community and stakeholders but they will keep the real picture onto themselves, until one of them spill it.
The whole gambling community is looking at how they handle it as long as they ensure that their users' funds are safe and they are good, there's no need to panic.
legendary
Activity: 2212
Merit: 7064
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If it was an inside job, could it be they accessed more than just the hot wallet? It sounds dumb thought: not many people will have access to those wallets, in which case it shouldn't be long to find the thief.
I don't know really, I just speculated about inside job, and I don't really believe anything I hear in news anymore.
It is stupid to lose coins like this, and it's even more stupid when it happens to someone more than once  Tongue

If it was an inside job and proper access control was in place, it should be trivial to find out who it was. Who knows until we get confirmation.
Nothing is trivial wit crypto businesses and shitcoins  Wink
hero member
Activity: 1414
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I just hope Stake gives us more information so we can stop speculating.

Well, I highly doubt we'll ever see that day. These kinds of secrets are usually locked up tighter than a bank vault. They'll wrap it up in the 'for our safety and to prevent future hacks' excuse, but let's be real, they're really just covering their tracks and hiding any slip-ups they might have had.
legendary
Activity: 2018
Merit: 1108
Pointing an accusing finger doesn't translate to finding the thief, and of course, the investigation would point accusing fingers at a tiny circle of people, but it would be a mere allegation unless they can truly solve the puzzle which I predict a slim chance of success for. A hack/fraud of this magnitude will be a well-organized crime that will be foolproof to avoid pointing to the insider unless they are idiots.

True. I hope Stake did not blindly give wallet access to employees without having some system in between to keep access logs.

I just hope Stake gives us more information so we can stop speculating.

hero member
Activity: 644
Merit: 592
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Whenever news like this is released I am a bit suspicious if that wasn't some type of insider job, and I really don't understand why they are keeping so much coins in hot wallet.
If it was an inside job, could it be they accessed more than just the hot wallet? It sounds dumb thought: not many people will have access to those wallets, in which case it shouldn't be long to find the thief.

If it was an inside job and proper access control was in place, it should be trivial to find out who it was. Who knows until we get confirmation.
Pointing an accusing finger doesn't translate to finding the thief, and of course, the investigation would point accusing fingers at a tiny circle of people, but it would be a mere allegation unless they can truly solve the puzzle which I predict a slim chance of success for. A hack/fraud of this magnitude will be a well-organized crime that will be foolproof to avoid pointing to the insider unless they are idiots.
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