This is the best summary I could come up with:
Washington — A pair of brothers from New York and Boston were taken into federal custody Tuesday, accused by prosecutors of devising a novel criminal scheme to steal about $25 million in cryptocurrency from a commonly used blockchain, according to a newly unsealed indictment.
Investigators accused them of spending months plotting their theft within the Ethereum blockchain, baiting their victims and establishing shell companies to hide their illicit profits.
According to charging documents, the pair studied math and computer science “at one of the most prestigious universities in the country,” which prosecutors said afforded them a unique set of skills that allowed them to carry out the first-of-its-kind endeavor in a matter of seconds.
The brothers allegedly started laying the groundwork in December 2022, engaging in what investigators called a “baiting” operation that targeted three specific victim traders on the digital Ethereum platform.
Investigators said the defendants’ plot took months to plan but just 12 seconds to execute, allegedly raking in approximately $25 million from their unwitting victims.
They were arrested on Tuesday and are expected to make their initial appearances in New York and Boston federal courts on Wednesday.
The original article contains 396 words, the summary contains 190 words. Saved 52%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Found some more technical details here:
The brothers created 16 Ethereum validators and targeted three specific traders who operated MEV bots, the indictment said.
To activate 1 validator you need 32 ETH. So for the 16 validators they got, it would be 512 ETH. Prices in December 2022 for eth were around 1200$. So they “invested” in this fraud over 600,000$.
Today’s eth price is around 3000$ so they’d be having over 1.5 mil, if they weren’t that greedy
I’m curious to see how the cops found out who’s they were to arrest them
Bet they literally posted their deeds in discord or some shit
Yeah the first rule about something like this is to keep your damn mouth shut.
The second rule is to launder it slowly so it can’t be traced back to you.
So, do we ban technical colleges now, and just let AI come up with new stuff?
In doing so, they fraudulently gained access to pending private transactions and used that access to alter certain transactions and obtain their victims’ cryptocurrency,
I guess they never watched Office Space, or Superman II.
Superman III
Maybe I need to go rewatch it.
It was on the cover of that tps report.
I feel like you’re jumping to conclusions
…have you seen my stapler?
and I kept the staples for the Swingline stapler and it’s not okay because if they take my stapler then I’ll set the building on fire…
They must have fucked up some mundane detail like misplacing a zero or something.
Yeah but who the fuck figured it out and how? Sounds to me like those fellows did their homework?
Crypto: “We don’t have or want government oversight.”
Also crypto: “Please, government, help us get back our made up money!”
I mean, yes, but I can’t help pointing out that all money is made up. The only difference is the purpose of the money system.
And how on earth did you arrive to this arbitrary conclusion?
Effectively they speed run something like 400 years of banking regulation and its history.
But Code is Law! It’s decentralized and trustless, I’m really disappointed with the victims for going to big government, with cryptocurrency there’s no need for government. The blockchain clearly already decided that the ETH belongs to the two brothers.
ETH abandoned the trustless part. Now you’re supposed to trust the validators. Clearly, you can’t.
It was never “trustless”, but trust in the system as a whole.
The change you mentioned is more a change of the definition of “system”, since now it’s effectively an oligarchy.
I wish people would go straight to the source for these stories. No reason to link to something that only paraphrases a press release and adds some ads.
Press release (contains link to indictment):
How’s that secure Proof of Stake working out?
