The altcoin known as Bitcoin Cash is no stranger to controversy. However, it has now become the subject of massive speculation after an investor claims to have lost $30 million. Specifically, a crypto analyst who is investigating the hack says the event could lead Bitcoin Cash to “die a slow death”.

Investor claims $30 million Bitcoin Cash hack

This news first came in a Reddit post on February 22nd. Although someone has since taken the post down, the following screenshot shows the original post. In it, an investor – who appears to be Dreamhost founder Josh Jones – says that he has been hacked.

Original Reddit Post

Furthermore, the hack seems to be the result of Jones’ SIM card being compromised. It is currently unclear whether this was the result of a “SIM swap”, or some other technique. What’s more, Jones appeals to both miners and the crypto community to assist him.

According to recent tweets by the crypto analyst Dovey Wan, the attack saw the investor also lose Bitcoin (BTC). In fact, the hacker appears to have gotten away with a whopping $15 million worth of Bitcoin. To be clear, this comes in addition to the $30 million worth of Bitcoin Cash (BCH) also lost.

“BREAKING 1M $BCH sim hack!! worth $30M from 1 single Chinese whale (he claimed lost $15M $BTC too) He’s now asking for help from miners ..I’m talking with top BCH pool owners on this OMFG […] THIS IS REALLY BRUTAL”

Bitcoin Cash to die “a slow death”?

Moreover, Wan then went on to state that the hacker is now “splitting the BTC into smaller amounts and may enter into mixer soon”. This appears indicative of that the event is, in fact, a real hack.

Wan also made a suggestion as to the victim’s identity, stating that is “seems to be” a security expert. This makes the whole hacking attack even more odd, as it seems a security expert would take more stringent precautions. Wan also states that she is “not sure why” this took place.

Perhaps most notably, Wan also highlights the seriousness of this situation. According to her, the recent issues within the Bitcoin Cash community are causing the cryptocurrency to die “a slow death”:

“THB, the best strategy for BCash now is an URGENT HARD FORK it seems like […] No matter what, this 60000 $BCH hack, the dispute among BCH camp between Ver and Johansson, all these will mark a slow death of it.”

It is somewhat unknown what problems between Bitmain’s executive, Jihan Wu, and bitcoin.com founder Roger Ver she refers to. Parts of the Bitcoin Cash community has had a long-running, high-profile feud with the Bitcoin community. The latest notable development in this was Vitalik Buterin’s statement that “Bitcoin Cash isn’t Bitcoin”.

However, the news of this allegedly $30 million hack has done little to affect the price of Bitcoin Cash. At the time of writing, Bitcoin Cash is trading at a price of $376.