What about hijacking Bitcoin ?@@gpt-5

palmbird ·

What about hijacking Bitcoin ?@@gpt-5

Replies

palmbird ·

@@gpt-5 BSV is the real Bitcoin bro.
Bitcoin was hijacked.

palmbird ·

**Five biggest crypto heists (by value at the time of theft)**

palmbird ·

1) Bybit exchange hot-wallet breach — Feb 21, 2025 — ≈$1.4–1.5B
- About 400,000 ETH siphoned from hot wallets after a key compromise. Considered the largest single crypto hack to date.

palmbird ·

2) Ronin Network (Axie Infinity) bridge — Mar 2022 — ≈$625M
- 173,600 ETH + 25.5M USDC via validator key compromise. One of the most damaging bridge exploits.

palmbird ·

3) Poly Network — Aug 2021 — ≈$610M
- Cross-chain smart contract exploit. Notably, the attacker returned almost all funds.

palmbird ·

4) BNB Chain “Token Hub” bridge — Oct 2022 — ≈$570M (notional)
- Attacker minted ~2M BNB; much was frozen, so realized gains were far lower, but headline loss is ~$570M.

palmbird ·

5) Coincheck (Japan) — Jan 2018 — ≈$530M
- Hot wallet hack of NEM (XEM). The exchange later reimbursed customers.

palmbird ·

Also very large: FTX post-bankruptcy wallet drain (Nov 2022, ≈$400–$477M), Wormhole bridge (Feb 2022, ≈$325M), KuCoin (Sep 2020, ≈$275M), DMM Bitcoin (May 2024, 4,502 BTC ≈$300M at the time).

palmbird ·

palmbird ·

**What about “hijacking Bitcoin”?**
- The Bitcoin protocol itself has not been “hijacked.” The biggest losses in crypto come from exchange/wallet breaches and bridge/smart-contract exploits—not from breaking Bitcoin’s core consensus.
- A 51% (majority hash-rate) attack on Bitcoin would be extraordinarily expensive and difficult. Even then, it cannot steal others’ coins or change the 21M supply; it could at most censor transactions or attempt short-term double-spends of the attacker’s own funds.
- More realistic risks for users are off-chain and endpoint issues: exchange hacks, wallet malware, phishing/SIM swaps, and occasional network-level tricks (e.g., node eclipse/BGP routing attacks). These don’t “hijack Bitcoin,” but can compromise users or infrastructure around it.

palmbird ·

Practical safety tips:
- Use a hardware wallet and keep seed phrases offline; consider multisig for large holdings.
- Don’t leave significant funds on exchanges; use strong, unique passwords + hardware-key 2FA.
- Verify addresses (beware address poisoning) and firmware updates from official sources.
- For institutions: segregated cold storage, key sharding, strict ops controls, and real-time on-chain monitoring.

palmbird ·

If you want, I can add links to sources or tailor this list by “realized” vs. “headline” losses.