Hackers have apparently compromised a wallet belonging to billionaire investor Mark Cuban, stealing a number of cryptocurrencies. The owner of the Dallas Mavericks NBA team, who confirmed the breach, has been able to transfer the remaining digital funds to U.S. crypto exchange Coinbase.
Mark Cuban’s Metamask Wallet Drained by Hackers
Cryptocurrency worth hundreds of thousands of U.S. dollars has been evidently stolen by hackers from a hot wallet owned by American entrepreneur Mark Cuban. The billionaire confirmed to crypto media he was the victim of an attack.
The suspicious movement of funds from the wallet, which had been inactive for 160 days, was first noticed by blockchain sleuth Wazz (X handle @WazzCrypto) on Friday.
Lmao, did Mark Cuban’s wallet just get drained?
Wallet inactive for 160 days and all assets just moved pic.twitter.com/vWnMZFyHB5
— Wazz (@WazzCrypto) September 15, 2023
In a matter of minutes, amounts in various cryptocurrencies, including stablecoins and tokens, worth a total of $870,000 were drained, according to the transaction history of the Metamask wallet identified as ‘Mark Cuban 2’ on Etherscan.
Cuban confirmed the hack of his wallet to the crypto news outlet DL News. “I went on Metamask for the first time in months. They must have been watching,” he said, adding: “I’m pretty sure I downloaded a version of Metamask with some shit in it.” The wallet crashed several times.
In a later transaction, around $2 million worth of USDC was also sent to a different wallet. Cuban revealed that he had transferred the remaining assets to Coinbase Custody. He also said that he locked his non-fungible tokens (NFTs) on Opensea and transferred all his polygon, too. Crypto intelligence firm Arkham pointed out:
Mark Cuban’s address “mcuban” was drained for $870K last night.
What some may have missed is that the damage could have been MUCH worse. Cuban had ~$2.5M USDC on Polygon, in the same wallet!
Luckily, he managed to transfer it to Coinbase without the hacker realizing. pic.twitter.com/DVoygYC88f
— Arkham (@ArkhamIntel) September 16, 2023
Mark Cuban’s investing in the crypto space hasn’t gone without issues. In 2021, he lost on an investment in a project named Iron Finance when the value of its stablecoin called titan evaporated, wiping out his holdings as well.
Prominent members of the crypto community have also suffered from hacks. Days ago, Vitalik Buterin’s account on X, formerly Twitter, was breached to promote a crypto scam resulting in the loss of over $690,000 for those who fell for the fraud. The founder of Ethereum later confirmed he was the victim of a SIM swap attack.
What are your thoughts on incidents like the hacking of Cuban’s crypto wallet and Buterin’s X account? Tell us in the comments section below.