So this was most likely planned out to coincide with the payout?
Without doubt. I'm surprised they didn't squeeze another 20 hours of mining profits
I guess once you are over $50m it's all the same...That's a common misconception, but a few million here, a few million there, pretty soon you're talking about real money.
This is why use the jaws of life to get the last bit of toothpaste out of the tube.There was an attack on bcc that hurt the scrypt profit-switching pools just a day before this. I'm really not sure this heist was all about the money, or at least, not just this particular pile of money. The perps may be playing a much bigger game.
Such as?
The people who suffered in both cases were mining altcoins, and were out on the fringes of profit switching among the lesser known, less secure alts (bcc, for example). Taking out some alts on the periphery might increasingly scare speculative dollars to more established currencies, not just bitcoin, but the most familiar, strongest cryptos. Two attacks wouldn't accomplish that, so I'm just spit-balling unless there are more attacks, but if they profit from each attack with the foreknowledge of what will go down as well as the wallet proceeds, they can drive bigger and bigger attacks as they go and knock down targets like dominos.
If you were going to attack the entire system rather than just promote your corner of it, eventually all the way to attacking bitcoin itself, that wouldn't be a bad way to start. Alts are almost an overflow for BTC. Take that away and profit in the process, and you've got a softer final target and more resources to hit it with.