US Government’s Cryptocurrency Wallet Hacked For $20 Million

On Oct 25, 2024

Hacks in the cryptocurrency industry are nothing new. In September alone, the market witnessed hacks worth $120 million. Over half of the $120 million in cryptocurrency attacks that occurred in the month were on centralized exchanges BingX and Indodax. Amidst this, malicious activity was suspected in the US government’s wallet.

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US Government Loses Big Bucks Through Cryptocurrency Hack

Data from Arkham Intelligence revealed that a cryptocurrency wallet that was probably under the authority of the US government was hacked on October 24. $20 million was taken out of the wallet. This further included money taken from the Bitfinex hack in 2016. The hacker sent the money to a wallet that started with “0x348.”

The report revealed that $5.5 million in USDC and $1.25 million in the stablecoin Tether were taken from Aave. These assets were then transferred to the wallet along with $13.7 million in USDC, an interest-bearing currency that symbolizes USDC put in an Aave lending market. Along with these, $446,000 worth of Ethereum was also compromised.

In addition, according to Arkham, the hacker has begun changing the stablecoins into Ethereum. The attacker continued laundering the money using addresses that were probably connected to a money laundering business.

It should be noted that $320,000 worth of Ethereum had been transferred to an exchange. Ethereum, worth $80,000, had broken off into other wallets simultaneously. ZachXBT took to X and noted that the Binance wasn’t always the recipient of the payments. Instead, they seemed to have been sent to a “nested exchange,” a liquidity medium that uses Binance.

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Ilya Lichtenstein and Heather Morgan hacked the Bitfinex exchange in 2016 and took over 120,000 Bitcoin, which is worth about $8.2 billion today. They were the original owners of the stolen money. Both were taken into custody in 2022, and their cases are already approaching the November sentencing date.

The duo entered a plea deal in July 2023, acknowledging that they were charged with conspiracy and money laundering. Lichtenstein’s involvement in the cryptocurrency hack has caused him to face a possible five-year prison term, but Morgan is requesting a lesser 18-month term.

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