Mark Cuban, the well-known American businessman, investor, and television personality, recently experienced a significant loss of approximately $870,000 in a hot wallet hack related to cryptocurrency. While Cuban has acknowledged the breach, the exact details of how it occurred remain unclear.
Reportedly, nearly $900,000 worth of cryptocurrencies were drained from one of Cuban's hot wallets. The transaction history on Etherscan reveals that various assets, including USD Coin (USDC), Tether (USDT), and Lido Staked Ether (stETH), were swiftly withdrawn from the wallet within a 10-minute timeframe.
Adding complexity to the situation, an additional $2 million worth of USDC was withdrawn and transferred to a different wallet. This raised suspicions that Cuban might have been repositioning his assets.
Independent blockchain investigator @WazzCrypto was the first to detect the hack on September 15, around 8 PM UTC. They noticed unusual activity in one of Cuban's wallets, which the 65-year-old entrepreneur hadn't accessed for about five months.
Later, Cuban confirmed to DL News that he had recently logged into MetaMask for the first time in months, hinting that the hacker or hackers might have been monitoring his actions and waiting for an opportune moment to strike. He mentioned that he had moved his remaining assets to Coinbase Custody, essentially confirming that the $2 million USDC transaction was initiated by him.
Regarding the hack, some members of the crypto community raised questions about Cuban's actions, suggesting that he might have unintentionally authorized a malicious transaction. Others speculated that his private key might have been compromised, given that the funds were directly transferred out of the wallet.
This incident isn't the first time Mark Cuban has encountered losses in the cryptocurrency market. In June 2021, he suffered an unspecified financial setback when an algorithmic stablecoin project known as Iron Finance collapsed amid what he referred to as a "rug pull," triggered by a supposed bank run.