Theft of the $14 billion Chinese Bitcoin Mining Pool has been exposed as the biggest crypto hack to date

A major Bitcoin robbery has just been exposed since December 2020, making it the biggest crypto hack in history.

According to Arkham Intelligence, hackers stole 127,426 BTC from Lubian, a Chinese mining pool. The stolen Bitcoin was worth $3.5 billion at the time. These assets are currently valued at $14.5 billion as Bitcoin prices are rising sharply.

The Rubien Exploit was the biggest crypto hack in history

Rubien operates mining facilities in China and Iran. In 2020, we controlled nearly 6% of Bitcoin’s total hashrate.

Arkham’s on-chain analysis found that on December 28, 2020, more than 90% of Lubian’s BTC was released. Two days later, additional funds were stolen from the address of the Bitcoin Omni tier.

Neither Rubien nor the hacker publicly admitted the violation. The funds remained dormant until the consolidation event in July 2024.

Arkham researchers linked multiple addresses used in the theft, and observed that each received an Op_return message from Lubian. Pool spent 1.4 BTC on 1,516 transactions to sue the stolen funds.

This pattern strongly suggests that the hacking was real and not sporf. The hackers have not yet moved the stolen BTC again.

Arkham suspects that Rubian used a flawed key generation algorithm. Lubian still holds around 11,886 BTC, worth $1.35 billion.

Meanwhile, hacker stashes remain untouched, making it the global 13th largest BTC holder.

The revelation surpasses previous record, the $1.5 billion bi-bit hack in February 2025.

Arkham disclosure adds new urgency to reviews of key security and crypto infrastructure, particularly within legacy mining operations.