Two brothers stole more than 20 million euros in the USA. They are now facing prison because of this. The two had manipulated a blockchain.
As our colleagues at ArsTechnica report, the brothers are two MIT students who were able to “use specialized skills and training to manipulate protocols.”
In this way, they managed to access more than 20 million euros in less than half a minute. They are now on trial in the USA.
The two brothers face decades in prison
What did the two of them do? According to the court, the two brothers managed to manipulate the Ethereum blockchain to access pending private transactions, allowing them to alter them and obtain their victims’ cryptocurrencies, earning them 24 million euros.
The victims could not do anything about it because when they noticed the mistake, they demanded the return of the funds, which the brothers, who already had the rights to the transaction, refused and kept the money.
What happens next? In court, the two now face the maximum sentence of up to 20 years in prison each. In total, this is 40 years. The two perpetrators have already been arrested and charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and money laundering. This is reported by our Spanish colleagues at 3DJuegos, among others.
Another example shows how much money you can earn with cryptocurrencies and what risks there are: A German engineer lost his password to his wallet, which is worth over 200 million euros. He also refuses help: A German has two more attempts to get his hands on 222 million euros – an expert wants to help him, but he refuses help