Editor’s note: This article was first published in December 2013 and describes a theft unfolding on 3 December 2013; the conversion of 96,000 BTC to about $100 million (about €74 million) uses Bitcoin’s price at that moment.
One of the biggest thefts in the history of Bitcoin (short as that history is) is taking place right now. Someone has stolen 96,000 bitcoins, which at current prices are worth about $100 million (around €74 million).
After the fall of one of the main sites used by drug and arms traffickers who traded under cover of Bitcoin’s anonymity, Sheep Marketplace took its place. Now the platform has been shut down, because the theft is even bigger than feared. Whoever did it managed things so that many users did not even notice: their virtual wallets still showed the bitcoins, but the bitcoins were no longer there. They had vanished, and the victims cannot report it.
Yesterday there were rumours that the huge theft might have been the work of the website’s own owners, but it is hard to believe anyone would be stupid enough to steal millions from a group of drug traffickers.
According to the New Statesman website, users themselves say the bitcoins can be traced, because Bitcoin uses pseudonyms but is not anonymous. So if those 96,000 bitcoins are to be turned into money, they will have to leave the platform through transactions that every user can follow.
Several Reddit users dispute this, however, saying the thief can launder the bitcoins very easily, so that not even the FBI could trace the money.
“Someone with bitcoins can send part of them to a site like bitcoinfog.com, which mixes your bitcoins and splits them up in such a way that in the end no agency could trace them,” says one Reddit user, who has spent these past few days trying to track down the thief who, he says, also has his bitcoins.
This user has explained how someone with 96,000 stolen bitcoins could successfully hide them, and it seems that the person or group of people who stole them knew what they were doing. They have probably not counted on one thing, though: to sell bitcoins, every intermediary asks for a real identity. So that person or group is taking the risk that, the moment the 96,000 bitcoins are linked to a bank account, they could get the surprise of their lives.
The other possibility is that the thief, out of fear, decides not to sell the bitcoins. In that case he would not profit (at least not in full), but the owners of those bitcoins would never see their money again either.
For my part, I will say it again: Bitcoin, its purpose and the way it works have no seriousness whatsoever, unless you are a drug trafficker, and, as we can see, not even they can keep their money very safe.
Featured image: Francesco Zola, Jan Lukas Bruse, Maria Eguimendia, Mikel Galar and Raul Orduna Urrutia, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
