Important points
- More than $20 million in Ethereum and stablecoins were stolen from U.S. government-controlled wallets.
- The theft is related to the wallet involved in the 2016 Bitfinex hack.
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The U.S. government may have fallen victim to a $20 million exploit targeting crypto wallets on October 24, according to a report from Arkham and blockchain detective ZachXBT.
𝗨𝗣𝗗𝗔𝗧𝗘: 𝗨𝗦𝗚𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿𝗻𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗚𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿𝗻𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗹𝗶 𝗻𝗸𝗲𝗱𝗮𝗱𝗱𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗯𝗲𝗲𝗻𝗳𝗼𝗿$ $𝟮𝟬𝗠.
$20 million in USDC, USDT, USDC, and ETH were suspiciously moved from address 0xc9E6E51C7dA9FF1198fdC5b3369EfeDA9b19C34c linked to USG… pic.twitter.com/UXn1atE1Wx
— Arkham (@ArkhamIntel) October 24, 2024
The incident was first reported earlier today after a U.S. government-related address that had been suspended for eight months made suspicious forwardings.
According to data tracked by Arcam, $1.25 million in USDT and $5.5 million in USDC were initially moved from DeFi platform Aave. Approximately $13.7 million in USDC and $446,000 in Ethereum were then transferred to the newly established wallet. These funds had previously been seized by US authorities during the investigation into the Bitfinex hack.
Additionally, approximately $320,000 of Ethereum was transferred to various exchanges, and $80,000 was distributed to multiple small wallets. An investigation is underway to trace the laundered funds and assess the full scope of the breach. The US government has not yet issued an official statement regarding the incident.
Arkham noted that the attackers had begun selling these assets for ETH and may have been laundering the proceeds through various suspicious addresses. At the time of reporting, US authorities still held a total of more than $14 billion.
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