Blockchain Bandit Moves 51,000 ETH After Two Years of Dormancy
After nearly two years of inactivity, hacker Blockchain Bandit, who stole 51,000 ETH by guessing weak private keys, has moved funds to a new wallet. The transfer involved moving all ETH holdings from 10 wallet addresses to the multi-signature address “0xC45…1D542,” as reported by ZachXBT.
On December 30, the hacker transferred funds in batches of mostly 5,000 Ether. Prior to this activity, the stolen funds had remained untouched since January 21, 2023, when the last transfer occurred. During this time, the hacker also moved 470 Bitcoins.
In 2019, Blockchain Bandit amassed 45,000 Ether (ETH) by successfully guessing weak private keys, according to Independent Security Evaluators. This method, known as “Ethercombing,” involved brute force exploitation of faulty code and flawed random number generators. Despite being statistically improbable, the hacker uncovered 732 private keys linked to 49,060 transactions. ZachXBT noted that such “programmatic theft” has been ongoing since 2016, with significant exploits occurring in 2018.
The identity of Blockchain Bandit remains unknown, but crypto security analyst Adrian Bednarek has speculated that a state actor, possibly North Korea, could be behind the thefts.
This movement of Ethereum coincides with a price drop to $3,300 earlier today. As of now, ETH is trading down 1.04% at $3,377.26, with a market cap of $406 billion and daily trading volumes increasing by 42% to $25.34 billion.
Ethereum (ETH) Price Action Ahead
Ethereum (ETH), the second-largest cryptocurrency, has experienced volatility recently, dropping to $3,300 before bouncing back to around $3,400. The altcoin is on track to close December with a loss of approximately 10%, influenced by a hawkish Federal Reserve meeting mid-month that triggered a broader market sell-off. ETH has dipped below its 21-day and 50-day moving averages but continues to find support around the $3,000 mark, above its 200-day moving average.
if $ETH were to go up like last cycle compared to $BTC, ETH/BTC would be at 0.146.
At the current price of $BTC this would result in $15.2k per $ETH.
If we assume $BTC will go up to at least 150k, $ETH could go as high as $21.9k just by performing like last cycle.
— Mat 🦇🔊 (@materkel) December 29, 2024
Looking ahead to 2025, crypto market analysts remain optimistic for Ethereum, predicting potential growth to fresh all-time highs. Some analysts forecast ETH could reach between $10,000 and $15,000 by mid-2025.