LuBian wallets stir again with 15,959 Bitcoin on the move

LuBian-linked wallets have shifted 15,959 BTC worth $1.83 billion across four addresses, marking their second major transfer in weeks and reviving one of crypto’s longest-running on-chain mysteries.

On Oct. 22, OnchainLens flagged a coordinated transfer from four wallets tied to LuBian, the defunct Chinese mining pool at the center of a 2020 Bitcoin ( BTC ) embezzlement case. The alert showed two identical transactions of 4,999 BTC, alongside 3,424 BTC and 2,535 BTC sent to separate addresses.

The move comes barely a week after another 11,886 BTC, worth $1.3 billion, left LuBian-linked wallets, suggesting renewed control over funds once considered frozen under U.S. oversight.

A four-year mystery that never really went cold

The latest move by LuBian-tagged wallets revives one of the most dramatic unsolved thefts in Bitcoin’s history. In December 2020, the once-prominent Chinese mining pool claimed to have been hacked for 127,426 BTC, then worth $3.5 billion and nearly $14.5 billion at today’s prices,

According to Arkham Intelligence , the attackers exploited vulnerabilities in the miner’s private key generation system, draining over 90% of LuBian’s holdings overnight, followed by an additional $6 million in Bitcoin and USDT the next day.

The timing was a brutal irony; LuBian had rapidly climbed the ranks in early 2020 to become the world’s sixth-largest mining pool, all while publicly branding itself as “the safest high-yielding mining pool in the world.”

In a desperate attempt to recover the assets, LuBian took the unusual step of communicating directly with the attacker on-chain. Using Bitcoin’s OP_RETURN function, they left a message pleading, “To the whitehat who is saving our asset, you can contact us… to discuss the return of asset and your reward.” The plea went unanswered.

Meanwhile, the transfer comes after the DOJ on October 14 announced one of the largest crypto forfeiture cases in history, targeting the Prince Holding Group and its founder, Chen Zhi.

U.S. prosecutors filed a complaint for roughly $14.4 billion in Bitcoin tied to an alleged international fraud network. The DOJ stated that Zhi and his co-conspirators used companies, including LuBian, to launder illicit proceeds and generate “clean Bitcoin dissociated from criminal proceeds.”

Bitcoin traded at $107,932 after tumbling 3.88% in the last 24 hours, according to crypto.news data.