The US government has hacked $20 million worth of crypto

According to blockchain analysts at Arkham Intelligence, the US government has reportedly lost around $20 million worth of crypto due to a cyber attack.

Arkham said it discovered the cryptocurrency was being “suspiciously moved” from a government wallet to an unknown wallet. The funds moved consisted of stablecoins such as USDC, USDT, aUSDC and ethereum (ETH). The stolen coins are now being sold for ETH.

“The funds were moved to wallet 0x348, which started selling the funds to ETH. We believe the attacker has already begun laundering the proceeds through suspicious addresses associated with a money laundering service,” Arkham said.

Another blockchain analytics company called Lookonchain said the attacker stole US$13.7 million aUSDC, US$5.44 million USDC, US$1.12 million USDT and US$447,000 ETH.

Arkham’s identification of the activity prompted ZachXBT to investigate the incident, who also said a theft had occurred.

“TLDR, it is a likely theft as money tied to the USG (US Government) goes to direct exchanges such as N exchange, Switchain and Binance nested service,” said ZachXBT.

~$20M OF US GOVERNMENT ASSETS MOVED TO A NEW ADDRESS pic.twitter.com/MXgi9mderO

— Arkham (@ArkhamIntel) October 24, 2024

Arkham also said the addresses involved in the incident were linked to the 2016 Bitfinex exchange hack.

According to 21.co, the US government has $13.7 billion worth of bitcoin (BTC), 44 percent of which came from the Bitfinex hack attack, which took place in January 2022.

Daniel Croft

Born in the heart of Western Sydney, Daniel Croft is a passionate journalist with an understanding and experience of writing in the technology space. After studying at Macquarie University, he joined Momentum Media in 2022 and has written for a number of publications including Australian Aviation, Cyber Security Connect and Defense Connect. In addition to writing, Daniel has a keen interest in music and spends his time playing in bands in Sydney.