Altcoin Bitcoin Cash (BCH) has become the subject of intense speculation after a major investor claimed he lost $30 million in a wallet hack.
In a now-deleted Reddit post from Feb. 22, the investor, who appears to be Dreamhost founder Josh Jones, said the attacker also stole 1,500 Bitcoin (BTC) worth $14.4 million.
Hacker steals reported $45M
The hack came in the form of Jones’ SIM card being compromised. So far, he has not confirmed whether this was a so-called “SIM swap,” or whether the funds were commandeered by other means.
In the deleted post, Jones appealed to BCH miners not to validate the transactions. He wrote:
“It’s only had 3 confirmations, if any miners/the community can help somehow, I’ve got the private keys. Help help help.. Big reward obviously.”
Commenting on the events, Dovey Wan, founding partner at crypto asset fund Primitive Ventures, warned that the impact would go far beyond Jones himself.
In a series of tweets, Wan reproduced the Reddit post, criticizing Jones for keeping such a large amount of cryptocurrency in a wallet accessible simply from his smartphone. She described the attack as “really brutal.”
Wan: BCH drama will result in “slow death”
Subsequently, Wan added that the hacker was splitting up the stolen funds, likely in an attempt to conceal their origin and make them easier to sell on exchanges.
“RIP BCH .. only a double-spent can help this poor guy now,” she wrote, continuing that Bitcoin Cash as a cryptocurrency faced a significant threat:
“No matter what, this 60000 $BCH hack, the dispute among BCH camp between Ver and Jihan, all these will mark a slow death of it.”
As Cointelegraph reported, Bitcoin Cash has seen various contentious events throughout its lifespan, including a hard fork in 2018 which resulted in the creation of another altcoin, Bitcoin SV (BSV).
It is unclear which other problems Wan was referencing when she mentioned two of its leading figures — Bitmain executive Jihan Wu and Bitcoin.com founder Roger Ver.
At press time, BCH/USD had barely reacted to the hack, slipping just 1% on the day to trade at $373. Year to date, the pair is still up over 80%.