US Government Hacked $20 Million in Cryptocurrencies
According to blockchain analysts at Arkham Intelligence, the US government has lost approximately $20 million in cryptocurrency as a result of a cyberattack.
Arkham said it detected that the cryptocurrency was “suspiciously moved” from a government wallet to an unknown wallet. The funds moved were made up of stablecoins such as USDC, USDT, aUSDC and ethereum (ETH). Stolen coins are now sold for ETH.
“The funds were moved to wallet 0x348, which began selling the funds to ETH. “We believe the attacker has already begun laundering proceeds through suspicious addresses linked to a money laundering service,” Arkham said.
Another blockchain analytics company called Lookonchain said the attacker stole $13.7 million USDC, $5.44 million USDC, $1.12 million USDT, and $447,000 ETH.
Arkham’s identification of the activity prompted ZachXBT to investigate the incident, who also said that a theft had occurred.
“TLDR is a likely theft since funds linked to the US government [U.S. government] I started turning to instant exchanges like N Exchange, Switchain, and the Binance nested service,” ZachXBT said.
~$20M IN US GOVERNMENT ASSETS MOVE TO NEW ADDRESS pic.twitter.com/MXgi9mderO
– Arkham (@ArkhamIntel) October 24, 2024
Arkham also said that the addresses involved in the incident were associated with the 2016 Bitfinex exchange hack.
According to 21.co, the US government holds $13.7 billion in bitcoin (BTC), 44 percent of which came from the Bitfinex hack seizure, which occurred in January 2022.
