One of the rallying calls made by the most ardent proponents of Bitcoin to promote cryptocurrency is “become your own bank.” This new technology allows you to perform the basic functions of modern banking: receive transactions, store funds and send transactions (and also review / process transactions if you want to become a miner).
While many libertarians see this as one of the most alluring aspects of Bitcoin, the “become your own bank” aspect of BTC has its drawbacks. The main disadvantage of holding your own capital means that they can often be easily hacked.
Bitcoin and BCH Swiped worth $ 45 million
According to a post posted on the BTC subreddit by a Zhoujianfu user, they have just been hacked for a large sum of Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash (BCH). The Redditor wrote:
[This] is my address, damn it. [The transactions] just [have] 3 confirmations, if miners / the community can help in any way, I have the private keys. Help, help, help … great reward obviously.
The addresses attached to the post, which were confirmed as the property of the Reddit user by signing a message with a private Bitcoin key, suggest that BCH is worth $ 30 million (about 100,000 coins) and Bitcoin in the Value of 15 million USD (1,550 coins) present were stolen.
Indeed, NewsBTC’s brief analysis of the addresses revealed that a transactor had sent the funds from the affected addresses to others and then started splitting the coins to mitigate the detection by blockchain crime fighters.
BREAKING
1M $ BCH sim hack !! Valued at $ 30 million from a single Chinese whale (he claimed it also lost $ 15 million in BTC). He’s now asking the miners for help. I speak to the best BCH pool owners about this OMFG
???
BCH address: qzumak2rvxksjgkjuxe2fe5jxatktlsnhy5sthr5p7
This is really brutal pic.twitter.com/19XM3w5BL7
– Dovey serves people with virtue wan ?? (@DoveyWan) February 22, 2020
How did that go
How did it happen? You might ask.
According to the “Chinese whale,” it was a SIM swap, as branded by cryptocurrency commentator and investor Dovey Wan. (The important thing is that these claims cannot be verified. Many wonder why someone would store such a large amount of Bitcoin and BCH on a platform that can be accessed via a mobile phone. A context may be missing that is not yet known was given.)
For those who don’t know, a SIM swap is when a hacker takes over their own cellular identity, i.e. their cell phone number, often through social engineering tactics.
For many services that require second-factor authentication in the form of codes sent as text to phone numbers, SIM swaps can help hackers gain access to online banking information, emails, online file drives and even crypto Access a victim’s Exchange logins.
Bitcoin not affected by the unfortunate hack
The market apparently shook off this event, perhaps because it is not clear what the apparent hacker will do with the stolen BTC and BCH.
At the time of this writing, Bitcoin has seen a mere -0.29% loss in the past 24 hours, flatlining after the brutal drop from $ 10,300 to $ 9,250 that occurred in minutes.
Featured image from Shutterstock
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