Mark Cuban's loses $870K in hot wallet hack

Background

Billionaire investor and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban has reportedly lost nearly $900,000 worth of cryptocurrency from one of his hot wallets. The hack was first noticed by independent blockchain sleuth @WazzCrypto, who observed suspicious activity in one of Cuban's wallets that had been inactive for five months.

The Hack

According to the transaction history on Etherscan, assets such as USD Coin (USDC), Tether (USDT), and Lido Staked Ether (stETH) were rapidly withdrawn from the wallet within a 10-minute timeframe. Additionally, $2 million worth of USDC was sent to a different wallet, leading to speculation that Cuban may have been moving assets around.

Cuban's Response

Cuban later confirmed to DL News that he had recently accessed his MetaMask wallet and suggested that the hacker(s) may have been monitoring his activity. He also stated that he had moved any remaining assets to Coinbase Custody, verifying that the $2 million USDC transaction was initiated by him.

Community Speculation

Members of the cryptocurrency community have pointed out that the security breach may have been a result of Cuban's actions rather than external hackers. Some theories include mistakenly signing a malicious transaction or a compromised private key, as the funds were directly transferred out of the wallet.

Past Crypto Losses

This is not the first time Cuban has faced losses in the crypto market. In June 2021, he experienced unspecified losses due to the collapse of the algorithmic stablecoin project, Iron Finance, which allegedly suffered a bank run.