According to digital asset deanonymization platform Arkham, a hacker has stolen $20 million worth of cryptocurrency from a wallet linked to the US government.
Arkham notes that the attacker stole the cryptocurrency from a government address linked to funds seized from hackers who attacked the Bitfinex exchange in 2016.
A government address hacker stole $20 million worth of USDT, USDC, Aave USDC (aUSDC), and Ethereum (ETH) stablecoins. Arkham claims they began selling the proceeds for ETH and funneling the cryptocurrency through a suspicious address associated with a money laundering service.
No cryptocurrency was moved to a US government address in the eight months prior to the hack.
In July, another U.S. government address transferred more than $2 billion in bitcoin (BTC) seized from the illicit online marketplace known as Silk Road. Arkham said at the time that the movement of the coins likely represented a “deposit of 10,000 BTC to an institutional vault/service.”
In April, several blockchain cryptocurrency tracking companies noted that more than $131 million worth of seized BTC was sent from a US government address to a Coinbase Prime wallet.
Julio Moreno, head of research at crypto analytics firm CryptoQuant, said the 2,000 bitcoins sent to Coinbase were sold. He also noted that the BTC came from a hoard seized from James Zhong, who pleaded guilty to wire fraud after being accused of manipulating Silk Road transactions.
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