Nearly $900,000 worth of crypto was reportedly drained from one of the hot wallets belonging to billionaire investor and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban.
Independent blockchain sleuth @WazzCrypto was the first to spot the hack on Sept. 15 at around 8 PM UTC, after they highlighted suspicious behavior happening with one of Cuban’s wallets that the 65-year-old hadn’t interacted with for roughly five months.
Lmao, did Mark Cuban's wallet just get drained?
Wallet inactive for 160 days and all assets just moved pic.twitter.com/vWnMZFyHB5— Wazz (@WazzCrypto) September 15, 2023
According to the transaction history on Etherscan, several batches of assets such as USD Coin (USDC), Tether (USDT) and Lido Staked Ether (stETH) were suddenly withdrawn from the wallet within a 10- minute window.
Adding complexity to the matter, another $2 million worth of USDC was then also withdrawn and sent to a different wallet, leading WazzCrypto to suspect that Cuban may have just been moving assets around.
However, a few hours later Cuban then confirmed to DL News that he had gone on MetaMask for the first time in months, and vaguely suggested that the hacker or hackers may have been watching and waiting for a moment to pounce.
Cuban added that he had transferred any remaining assets to Coinbase Custody, essentially confirming that the $2 million USDC transaction was him.
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In terms of the hack, members of the community were quick to point out that as opposed to hackers watching Cuban’s activity, he must have done something that led to the security breach.
Some suggested that Cuban may have mistakenly signed a malicious transaction, while others asserted that his private key was compromised given that the funds were directly transferred out of the wallet.
This is not the first time Cuban has taken a hit in the crypto market.
Back in June 2021, Cuban lost an unspecified amount of capital on what he called a “rug pull” after an algorithmic stablecoin project called Iron Finance imploded amid a supposed bank run.
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