As states tighten their control over cryptos, an old bitcoin theft resurfaces amid a geopolitical rivalry. LuBian, a Chinese mining pool, reportedly lost more than 127,000 BTC in 2020. Remaining discreet for years, the case suddenly resurfaces as Beijing now accuses the United States of having seized these funds, now valued at over 14 billion dollars, through an intelligence operation. The suspicion of a state confiscation reignites tensions between two superpowers.
In Brief
- •China revives a forgotten case: a theft of 127,272 BTC that occurred in 2020 and went unnoticed for a long time.
- •Beijing accuses the United States of secretly seizing these funds through their intelligence agencies.
- •The hack allegedly exploited a major cryptographic flaw in LuBian’s security system.
- •The stolen bitcoins are said to have remained dormant for nearly 5 years before being transferred to an address linked to the DOJ.
Beijing Accuses the United States of Seizing Funds from a Massive Hack
The Chinese National Computer Virus Emergency Response Center (CVERC), a government agency, stated that "intelligence organizations of the United States" would be responsible for a large-scale hack targeting LuBian, a Chinese company active in bitcoin mining.
According to their technical report, the hack led to the exfiltration of 127,272 bitcoins, an astronomical amount transferred to wallets now identified as linked to American entities. The report specifies that "the United States Department of Justice currently holds these bitcoins", which, if confirmed, positions this case between cybercrime and geopolitical stakes.
The factual elements at the heart of this accusation are as follows:
- •The volume hacked: 127,272 BTC transferred from addresses linked to LuBian, approximately 15 billion dollars at present.
- •The technical origin: the hack occurred in December 2020, according to several consistent reports.
- •The public revelation: the case was made visible last August thanks to research by Arkham Intelligence.
- •The official accusation: China claims that "American intelligence organizations" conducted the hacking operation.
- •The BTCs are now said to be under the control of the United States Department of Justice.
- •Beijing considers the seizure a confiscation of private assets and questions the legitimacy of the legal framework invoked by Washington.
This accumulation of facts gives the case an unprecedented scale in the crypto sphere, not just because of the amount involved, but also because of the diplomatic dimension it might trigger.
A Cryptographic Flaw Exploited and Five Years of Silence
Beyond the political accusations, the technical investigation reveals that the hack would be due to a critical flaw in LuBian’s internal security. The platform apparently generated private keys with too low entropy, limiting security to only 32 bits, a serious mistake in the field of encryption.
This vulnerability would have allowed a malicious actor to access LuBian’s wallets without leaving immediate traces. Once the funds were moved, they would have remained dormant, spread over several addresses, for almost five years. It is precisely this prolonged inactivity that raised Arkham Intelligence’s suspicions.
The timeline is intriguing. How could such a volume of bitcoins, representing at the time 6% of the worldwide Bitcoin network hashrate, disappear without alerting authorities or markets? And why were these assets suddenly linked to a DOJ seizure in 2023, without prior official communication? Available documents do not resolve these questions but highlight persistent opacity, both from mining specialists and judicial authorities.
If CVERC’s statements are confirmed, this case could revive diplomatic tensions, but also redefine transparency protocols around crypto seizures. Trust in bitcoin traceability, often touted as absolute, is here questioned by a series of discrete actions, technical flaws, and prolonged silences. From a simple hack, the LuBian case transforms into a real-world test for global crypto regulation.