A total of 2,171 BTC were stolen, and the number of victims of this wallet vulnerability is increasing

summary:

1. A GitHub user claims he lost 36.5 BTC due to a vulnerability in an old Electrum wallet.

2. Prior to this, there were reports that the vulnerability caused another user to lose 1,400 BTC.

3. Electrum developers suggest that victims should report this to the police.

Yet another GitHub user claims he lost 36.5 BTC, worth $430,000, due to a vulnerability in an outdated version of the Electrum wallet. Hackers have reportedly stolen 2,171 BTC (about $25 million) in this way since the end of 2018.

As reported yesterday, a GitHub user claims to have lost 1,400 BTC (about $16 million) after recently accessing his Electrum wallet for the first time since 2017. The more than 1-year-old (and since patched) vulnerability caused the funds to be lost, with the funds being moved to an unknown address. But it turns out he's not the only recent victim.

GitHub user named “Cryptbtcaly” responded, “I had a similar situation two months ago. 36.5 BTC were stolen from my address,” adding, “Some of the stolen BTC went to Binance, but they ignored my calls and the money will not come back.”

Although the victim claims that Binance did not take any action regarding this theft, the exchange did take action regarding the previous theft of 1,400 BTC. Regarding this theft, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao stated that the exchange decided to blacklist the addresses of the suspected hackers.

“Not your code, not your funds. Watch for Electrrum (sic) official updates. This guy lost 1400 BTC, and so did a lot of other people.”

As the exploit continues to claim new victims, Electrum developer Thomas Voegtlin suggested that affected users should report the lost money to the police, further noting that an investigation is currently ongoing.

Voegtlin wrote on GitHub,

“Police investigations are ongoing in Germany and the UK. We (the developers) reported this phishing attack to the police about a year ago. I can’t comment on the status of the investigation, but it would help if the victim reported it independently.”

Meanwhile, 8 million Bitcoins (44% of Bitcoin's circulating supply) have not moved for at least two years, according to crypto analysts at Glassnode. Therefore, there are more "sleeping" Bitcoins that could still fall victim.