Welcome back to The Breakdown with me, NLW.

It's a daily podcast on macro, Bitcoin, and the big-picture power shifts remaking our world.

What's going on, guys? It is Wednesday, November 12th, and today we are talking about China, accusing the U.S. of stealing $13 billion in Bitcoin. Before we get into that, however, if you are enjoying the breakdown, please go subscribe to it, give it a rating, give it a review, or if you want to dive deeper into the conversation, come join us on the Breakers Discord. You can find a link in the show notes are go to bit. L.Y slash breakdown pod. Well, friends, China has accused the U.S. of orchestrating a $13 billion

Bitcoin theft. The allegation was made by China's cybersecurity agency and refers to a 2020

theft from the Lubean Bitcoin mining pool. Over 127,000 Bitcoin were stolen from the pool in

December 2020, but the

theft wasn't widely known until Arkham Intelligence reported on the incident this August.

Labuian had only been created in April of 2020 and quickly grew to become the sixth largest

pool on the network. It shut down the following February after the hack wiped out most of its

holdings. At the time, investors speculated whether the Chinese

government had shut Labuyan down or if they had converted it into a private pool. Arkham's research

uncovered that the Bitcoin had in fact been stolen. They speculated that a weakness in

Labuian's private key generation had left them open to brute force attacks. Now, this is the largest

Bitcoin hack of all time by dollar amount, representing around

$3 billion in Bitcoin at the time of the attack. The Bitcoin didn't move from late 2020 until

July of last year when they were moved into government wallets. There doesn't appear to

have been any attempt to launder the funds, as we would typically see from a North Korean hack.

A new report from the Chinese cybersecurity agency describes the attack as a state-level hacker

operation likely led by the U.S. They noted that the quiet and delayed movement of the funds

suggested government activity rather than a typical hacker. The agency further claimed

the Bitcoin are related to a U.S. case against Chinese national Chen Ji.

She is the chairman of Prince Group, which the DOJ is alleging to be a multinational criminal organization.

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