Mask Network founder Suji Yan reports $4 million crypto theft on his birthday

Mask Network’s CEO, Suji Yan, recently lost over $4 million in one of his public wallets. According to Yan in an X post, the hacking happened shortly after he celebrated his 29th birthday.

“I was in a private gathering with dozen friends and my phone was away for some minutes when I using the restroom etc.,” he stated.

Yan said that this attack stemmed from a private key loss or an offline attack. These transactions that were performed manually within the period of 11 minutes prove that the attacker’s possession of the private key was direct.

” I trust my friends, but this is a nightmare to anyone,”

Yan stated.

Cyvers Alerts and ZachXBT, two blockchain analytics companies, were able to trace some of the stolen coins as ETH and WETH, MASK, and USDT. These were then transferred to another wallet and shortly increased to approximately 1,690 ETH and were divided into six distinct addresses.

🚨ALERT🚨Our AI-powered system has detected suspicious transactions linked to @suji_yan, founder of @realMaskNetwork!

A suspicious address received nearly $4M in digital assets, including:
💰 113 $ETH
💰 923 $WETH
💰 301 $ezETH
💰 156 $weETH
💰 90 $pufET
💰 48.4K $MASK
💰 50K… pic.twitter.com/G8iCUzjJFV

— 🚨 Cyvers Alerts 🚨 (@CyversAlerts) February 27, 2025

Yan has also engaged the services of SlowMist and ZACHXBT to conduct the investigations. He is also assisting law enforcement in their investigations. He did not expound much on what led to the hack stating that more details about the incident will still be released after relevant experts have conducted their investigations.

Yan urged the culprit to meet him physically if the attack was offline. He cited accountability as a key issue, stating that the crypto industry cannot operate like a “dark forest. ” He further supported his words with the Chinese philosopher Mencius regarding adversity, stating that one could not afford to be weak when it came to this factor.

Crypto market continues to grapple with cyberattacks

The hack caused an immediate impact on the Mask Network token. According to CoinMarketCap, Mask Network’s token lost 7% of its value, and its price dipped to $2.23 within 24 hours of the news release.

Cyberattacks have surged in early 2025. Bybit has been the latest victim of the biggest crypto heist ever pulled off by the Lazarus Group. As we reported, Pump.fun social media was also recently hacked to promote a token called “Pump”.

Chainalysis, a blockchain intelligence company, responded to the increased threat and noted that while it has transitioned from criminal use of cybercrime, there is a vast illicit economy that is linked to issues of global security and transnational crime.

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