Bybit CEO Ben Zhou has confirmed that $1.07 billion—roughly 77% of the belongings stolen within the alternate’s current $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 acknowledged that 11 unbiased bounty hunters had been rewarded $2.1 million for serving to to freeze stolen belongings. Among the many prime contributors had 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) by way of THORChain, a decentralized platform designed for cross-chain asset swaps.
He acknowledged 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 stability 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 prison actions underneath the guise of decentralization. She argued that its system operates in an remoted ecosystem that advantages insiders and facilitates cash laundering.
Monahan stated:
“[THORChain] exists in its personal little bubble that’s principally exhausting criminals and the insiders who’ve found out methods to revenue from stated prison flows immediately or not directly.”
Nevertheless, Zhou acknowledged that the funds moved by way of the platform can nonetheless be traced. In response to him, it will likely be crucial to freeze the funds within the coming weeks earlier than hackers try and money out by way of 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 had been moved by way of different platforms, together with ExCH and OKX Web3 Proxy.
Zhou disclosed that 40,233 ETH—value roughly $100 million—moved by way of OKX’s Web3 proxy. Of this quantity, 16,680 ETH stays traceable, whereas 23,553 ETH ($65 million) requires extra info from OKX to trace.
In the meantime, 79,655 ETH—round 16% of the full stolen—was funneled by way of 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.”
