Many Bitcoin advocates commonly state that cryptocurrency makes people become their own bank. Truly, this emerging technology permits the completion of the basic functions that modern banks offer.

However, there are demerits associated with people becoming their own bank through Bitcoin. The major demerit associated with holding capital is the possibility of being hacked, often easily.

An individual with the username Zhoujianfu posted to the “BTC” subreddit, talking about the hacking of a huge sum of both Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash. The post reads:

[This] is my address, goddamnit. [The transactions] only [have] 3 confirmations, if any miners/the community can help somehow, I’ve got the private keys. Help, help, help… big reward obviously.

The individual is truly the owner of the attached addresses as confirmed by signing of a message with a Bitcoin private key, suggesting that BCH valued at 30 million USD as well as BTC worth 15 million USD were stolen.

NewsBTC briefly analyzed the addresses and it was discovered that a transactor moved the funds from the affected addresses to others and then started splitting up the coins, possibly to prevent detection.

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



😱😱😱



BCH address :qzumak2rvxksjgkjuxe2fe5jxatktlsnhy5sthr5p7



THIS IS REALLY BRUTAL pic.twitter.com/19XM3w5BL7 — Dovey 以德服人 Wan 🪐🦖 (@DoveyWan) February 22, 2020

Dovey Wan called the owner of the hacked funds a Chinese whale, noting that it was a SIM swap. It is noteworthy that such claims are unverifiable even as many people question why an individual would hold such a large sum of BTC and BCH on a platform accessible via one cellphone. It is likely that some context is yet to be revealed.

A SIM swap involves taking over someone’s cellular identity (cell phone number), most times via social engineering approaches. Hackers could use SIM swaps for easier access to a victims’ online banking data, emails, online file drives, and even cryptocurrency exchange logins.

Meanwhile, this event seems to not affect the market. At press time, the price of Bitcoin has declined by 0.29% within the previous 24 hours following the severe crash from $10.3k to $9,250 within minutes.