U.S. government suffers possible losses from crypto theft

Information has emerged that the U.S. government may have fallen victim to an exploit, resulting in the theft of around $20 million from its cryptocurrency wallet.

Suspicious transactions

The incident was first uncovered after several suspicious transfers were made from a government crypto wallet, which had not been used for eight months.

Movement of funds from DeFi platforms

According to Arkham, the first transaction transferred $1.25 million from the Aave platform. Subsequently, approximately $13.7 million in aUSDC and $446,000 in Ethereum were moved to a newly created crypto wallet. These funds were previously seized by U.S. authorities during the investigation of the Bitfinex exchange hack.

Money laundering of assets

Further, a movement of $320,000 in Ethereum was recorded, which was sent to various platforms, and $80,000 distributed to smaller wallets. Investigators continue to trace the laundered funds to assess the full extent of the breach.

No official comment from authorities

The government has not yet issued an official statement regarding the incident. However, Arkham noted that the perpetrator likely began selling the assets for Ethereum and laundering the funds through suspicious addresses. According to the latest data, U.S. authorities are holding over $14 billion in cryptocurrencies.