The infamous “Blockchain Bandit” has transferred 51,000 Ether to a new multisignature wallet after nearly two years of inactivity. The hacker, notorious for exploiting weak private keys, carried out the transfer on December 30, raising fresh questions about the motives and identity of the attacker.
Dormant Funds Stir After Two Years
Blockchain investigator ZachXBT reported that the stolen funds, previously distributed across ten separate wallet addresses, were consolidated into a multisignature wallet labeled “0xC45…1D542.” The transfers, executed in batches of 5,000 Ether, occurred within a narrow window between 8:54 PM and 9:18 PM UTC. These addresses had remained untouched since January 21, 2023, when the hacker last moved the 51,000 ETH alongside 470 Bitcoin.
The hacker has been active since 2016 and is known for leveraging a technique dubbed “Ethercombing.” This involves brute-forcing private keys using faulty random number generators or weak coding practices. By 2019, the hacker had already amassed nearly 45,000 ETH by uncovering 732 private keys associated with over 49,000 transactions, according to a report from Independent Security Evaluators.
Notably, Blockchain Bandit transferred the loot for the first time in January last year, as TheCoinRise reported.
Hacker’s Identity Remains a Mystery
Despite extensive investigations, the identity of the Blockchain Bandit remains unknown. Crypto security analyst Adrian Bednarek once suggested the possibility of a state actor like North Korea being involved, given the sophistication and scale of the thefts.
The recent consolidation comes amid a surge in crypto hacking activity in 2024. A report from Cyvers, an on-chain security firm, revealed that over $2.3 billion worth of assets were stolen across 165 major incidents this year, marking a 40% increase from 2023. The report highlighted access control breaches as the leading cause of these thefts, responsible for $1.9 billion of the losses across 67 incidents.
For the crypto community, the question remains whether this renewed activity signals an impending liquidation or merely a reshuffling of illicit gains to evade detection.
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