Approximately $900,000 worth of cryptocurrency was reported stolen from a hot wallet owned by billionaire investor Mark Cuban, who is also the owner of the Dallas Mavericks basketball team. The discovery of this theft was initially made by independent blockchain analysts known as Wazz around 8 pm UTC on September 15. They detected suspicious activity within one of Cuban's wallets, which had remained dormant for several months.
Etherscan's transaction history revealed that multiple batches of assets, including USD Coin (USDC), Tether, and Lido Staked Ether (stETH), were suddenly withdrawn from Cuban's wallet within a span of just 10 minutes. To further complicate the situation, an additional $2 million worth of USDC was withdrawn and sent to another wallet. This led Wazz to speculate that Cuban might have been in the process of moving assets around.
However, Mark Cuban later confirmed to DL News that he had been using MetaMask for the first time in months. He vaguely suggested that hackers might have been monitoring his activities, waiting for the right moment to strike. Cuban also mentioned that he had transferred all his remaining assets to Coinbase Custody, essentially confirming his involvement in the $2 million USDC transfer.
In response to the hack, members of the crypto community were quick to point out that rather than hackers monitoring Cuban, it's possible that he inadvertently took actions that resulted in the security breach. Some believe Cuban may have mistakenly signed a malicious transaction, while others speculate that his private keys might have been compromised, as the funds were transferred directly from his wallet. This incident is not the first time Mark Cuban has faced setbacks in the cryptocurrency market, as he previously incurred losses in June 2021 due to the collapse of an algorithmic stablecoin project called Iron Finance, which he referred to as a "rug pull."
