Top 5 Bitcoin Heists of 2013

Bitcoin is such a high-value target for hackers and criminals that it is not surprising that there have been quite a few thefts over the years. As is always the case, centralized platforms are to blame for these hackers, as the Bitcoin protocol has never been breached. Several heists took place in 2013, resulting in a large amount of money going missing.

#5 Bit LC Suffers From A Cold Wallet Breach

In most cases of Bitcoin theft, hackers empty a company’s hot wallet, as it is easily accessible. But in February of 2013, assailants breached the Bit LC cold wallet, resulting in a 2,000 Bitcoin loss. According to the company, only one person had access to the cold wallet storage, although it remains unclear if he was behind the attack. Bit LC was forced to declare bankruptcy, leaving a lot of cryptocurrency miners in the cold.

#4 BTCGuild Client Upgrade Goes Horribly Wrong

The BTCGuild Bitcoin client upgrade of March 2013 was supposed to be a smooth process, but things turned out quite differently. During the blockchain re-indexing process, the mining pool paid out BTC for difficulty-1 shares. A total of sixteen individuals emptied the company hot wallet during this process, although 47 Bitcoin was returned afterward. The remaining 1,207 Bitcoin was never recovered.

Less than 24 hours after this incident, BTCGuild and other companies were affected by a Bitcoin blockchain fork. Bitcoin-Qt clients who had not upgraded to the new version split off from the network. Mining pools who upgraded lost block revenue, resulting in just over 960 Bitcoin getting lost. Thankfully, the matters were resolved rather quickly.

#3 Just-Dice Admin Neglects To Update Database

Gambling platforms have been entwined with Bitcoin for many different years now. Just-Dice, one of the most popular gambling platform of 2013, lost over 1,300 Bitcoin. One player asked to withdraw this balance, which had to be paid from the cold wallet. But site administrator Chris Moore did not remove the balance from the database. This allowed the player to spend the fake balance, which he eventually lost. Technically, there was no official loss, but the 1,300 Bitcoins remained stolen.

#2 BASIC-MINING Disappears

Any company associated with Bitcoin mining has always been somewhat suspicious. Over the years it has become apparent that a lot of these companies run off with people’s money eventually. BASIC-MINING disappeared in October of 2013, after the exchange that hosted the Company’s publicly traded shares collapsed. The BASIC-MINING founder took off with 2,131 Bitcoin in the end.

#1 Inputs.io Gets Hacked

October 2013, was not a good month for Bitcoin users, as the Inputs.io web wallet was allegedly hacked. To this very day, it remains unclear what exactly happened, although there are still rumors about an inside job. Partial refunds were offered by the site owner, but 4,100 Bitcoin is still at large as we speak.

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