SBI crypto pool allegedly loses $21M — North Korea suspected
SBI Crypto, a mining pool division of the $14 billion Japanese conglomerate SBI Holdings, has allegedly failed to disclose the loss of $21 million worth of digital assets to its members.
This is according to investigative researcher ZachXBT.
The company allegedly lost bitcoin (BTC), ether (ETH), Dogecoin (DOGE), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), and Litecoin (LTC) over a week ago.
Neither ZachXBT nor Protos could find evidence that the company disclosed any such loss to its members. Protos reached out to SBI Crypto for comment but didn’t receive a response prior to publication time.
Tracing the movement of funds across the five blockchains into coin mixer Tornado Cash and instant exchanges, ZachXBT claimed the incident shares similarities to state-sponsored attacks by North Korea.
SBI Crypto is a significant contributor to the security of the Bitcoin ledger, mining at least 692 blocks and ranking sixth among pool operators by hashrate over the last 12 months.
Read more: How major Bitcoin mining pools calculate pay-per-share
Meanwhile, SBI Holdings is the largest crypto company in Japan and claims to possess over $200 billion worth of total assets, including non-crypto businesses.
In addition to standard hashrate-sharing payouts for miners, its mining pool also offers loans and other financing options to its members.
Because its crypto wallets serve a variety of purposes, it’s not yet clear whether the $21 million loss might reduce payout funds to members or impact other corporate operations.
Outside of mining, SBI has invested in a variety of digital assets and companies, including Ripple, Circle, R3 Corda, and many others.
Unfortunately, previous mining pool losses have negatively impacted member payouts. BTC Guild, GHash, WeMineLTC, and 50BTC are a few historical examples of pools that have delayed or failed to make payouts to miners who contributed proof-of-work.
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