Bybit CEO Ben Zhou has confirmed that $1.07 billion—roughly 77% of the belongings stolen within the alternate’s latest $1.4 billion safety breach—can nonetheless be tracked.
In a March 4 replace, Zhou disclosed that hackers efficiently laundered $280 million, round 20% of the 499,000 ETH stolen.
In the meantime, investigators have managed to freeze $42 million, accounting for 3% of the compromised funds.
Zhou said that 11 impartial bounty hunters have been rewarded $2.1 million for serving to to freeze stolen belongings. Among the many prime contributors have been Mantle, Paraswap, and blockchain investigator ZachXBT.
THORChain’s function
Zhou revealed that the attackers transformed a lot of the stolen ETH into Bitcoin (BTC) via THORChain, a decentralized platform designed for cross-chain asset swaps.
He said that the hackers funneled round 83% of the stolen belongings—equal to 417,348 ETH value roughly $1 billion—into BTC. They then dispersed these funds throughout 6,954 wallets, with a mean steadiness of 1.71 BTC per pockets.
This exercise considerably boosted THORChain’s transaction quantity within the final two weeks to greater than $5.8 billion following the Bybit breach. Blockchain analyst EmberCN additionally reported that the platform earned roughly $5.5 million in charges from these transactions.
Blockchain safety researcher Taylor Monahan criticized THORChain, claiming its construction permits legal actions underneath the guise of decentralization. She argued that its system operates in an remoted ecosystem that advantages insiders and facilitates cash laundering.
Monahan mentioned:
“[THORChain] exists in its personal little bubble that’s largely onerous criminals and the insiders who’ve discovered find out how to revenue from mentioned legal flows instantly or not directly.”
Nonetheless, Zhou said that the funds moved via the platform can nonetheless be traced. In line with him, will probably be vital to freeze the funds within the coming weeks earlier than hackers try to money out via centralized exchanges, over-the-counter (OTC) desks, and peer-to-peer (P2P) networks.
ExCH and OKX involvement
In the meantime, Zhou additionally reported that the stolen belongings have been moved via different platforms, together with ExCH and OKX Web3 Proxy.
Zhou disclosed that 40,233 ETH—value roughly $100 million—moved via OKX’s Web3 proxy. Of this quantity, 16,680 ETH stays traceable, whereas 23,553 ETH ($65 million) requires further data from OKX to trace.
In the meantime, 79,655 ETH—round 16% of the whole stolen—was funneled via ExCH, an alternate that had beforehand denied facilitating illicit transactions for the Bybit hacker.
In a Feb. 23 assertion, ExCH refuted claims that it had laundered funds for North Korea-linked entities however confirmed that:
“[An] insignificant portion of funds from the ByBit hack finally entered our tackle 0xf1da173228fcf015f43f3ea15abbb51f0d8f1123, which was an remoted case and the one half processed by our alternate, charges from which we will likely be donated for the general public good.”
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