- Cuban suggested that the hackers might have been monitoring his activity, waiting for an opportune moment to strike.
- The wallet had remained inactive for approximately five months before this discovery.
Billionaire entrepreneur and owner of the Dallas Mavericks basketball team, Mark Cuban, fell victim to a suspected hack that saw nearly $900,000 worth of cryptocurrency drained from one of his dormant wallets.
The incident came to light on 15 September when an independent blockchain investigator flagged unusual activity within one of Cuban’s crypto wallets. The wallet had remained inactive for approximately five months before this discovery.
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
Etherscan’s transaction history revealed that the wallet quickly withdrew multiple batches of assets, including USD Coin [USDC], Tether [USDT], and Lido Staked Ether [stETH], all within a 10-minute window.
Adding complexity to the situation, it also withdrew an additional $2 million worth of USDC and transferred it to a different wallet. Initially, this sparked suspicions that Cuban might have been reshuffling his assets.
Assets disappear from Mark Cuban’s dormant wallet
However, Cuban later confirmed to DL News that he had logged into MetaMask for the first time in months. He suggested that the hackers might have been monitoring his activity, waiting for an opportune moment to strike. As a precautionary measure, he moved any remaining assets to Coinbase Custody.
This clarification indicated that the $2 million USDC transaction was indeed his own action.
Some in the crypto community pointed out that Cuban’s actions might have inadvertently led to the hack. They suggested that he might have mistakenly approved a malicious transaction.
Given that the funds were directly transferred out of the wallet, it was speculated his private key could have been compromised.
This isn’t the first time Mark Cuban has faced challenges in the cryptocurrency market. In June 2021, he suffered losses in what he referred to as a “rug pull.” This occurred when an algorithmic stablecoin project named Iron Finance collapsed, resulting in unspecified losses for Cuban.
