The "sleeping" whale lost bitcoins worth $330 million after 8 years.

Participants of the crypto community face many difficulties along the way. For example, they are constantly watched by scammers who want to get their hands on investors’ cryptocurrency.

A story has gone viral in the crypto community about a person who held onto bitcoins for 8 years and lost them in just one hour. Arkham analysts have taken notice of the unfortunate investor.

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This is about an investor who purchased bitcoin for $3 million at the end of 2016 and the beginning of 2017. For eight years, the participant in the crypto community held onto their coins. Over the years, the value of the user’s BTC has grown to $330 million. Such large cryptocurrency investors are referred to as whales.

The first activity in the wallet was recorded in March 2025. According to Arkham, $250 million worth of cryptocurrency was transferred from the wallet to another address. The next reports of user address activity came on April 28. According to Arkham, unknown fraudsters stole all the bitcoins from the investor. The haul of the perpetrators amounted to $330 million, which the member of the crypto community had “grown” from an initially invested $3 million.

Blockchain investigator ZachXBT believes that this episode may be linked to the pump of the cryptocurrency Monero. He noted that after the bitcoin theft, the perpetrators began to launder the proceeds through 6 platforms. Part of the cryptocurrency was converted into XRM, which could have triggered a sharp rise in the price of the anonymous coin.

Some representatives of the crypto industry believe that the hack may have been carried out by North Korean hackers. BeInCrypto’s editorial team discussed their methods in a separate review. However, ZachXBT is confident that this time the North Koreans are not involved.

How scammers managed to gain access to the cryptocurrency of a patient investor is unknown. The perpetrators have a multitude of tools at their disposal: from software to infect devices to phishing attacks. It is possible that the owner of the bitcoins may have ignored the threat at the moment and made a mistake while working with the wallet.

Members of the crypto community sympathize with their colleague. Users of the network noted that the loss of such a large volume of BTC, which the investor had held for many years, could be a severe blow to his mental health.

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