Bybit CEO says $1 billion of stolen assets still trackable despite hackers mixing funds with THORchain

Bybit CEO Ben Zhou has confirmed that $1.07 billion—roughly 77% of the assets stolen successful the exchange’s caller $1.4 cardinal information breach—can inactive beryllium tracked.

In a March 4 update, Zhou disclosed that hackers successfully laundered $280 million, astir 20% of the 499,000 ETH stolen.

Meanwhile, investigators person managed to frost $42 million, accounting for 3% of the compromised funds.

Zhou stated that 11 autarkic bounty hunters were rewarded $2.1 cardinal for helping to frost stolen assets. Among the apical contributors were Mantle, Paraswap, and blockchain researcher ZachXBT.

THORChain’s role

Zhou revealed that the attackers converted overmuch of the stolen ETH into Bitcoin (BTC) done THORChain, a decentralized level designed for cross-chain plus swaps.

He stated that the hackers funneled astir 83% of the stolen assets—equivalent to 417,348 ETH worthy astir $1 billion—into BTC. They past dispersed these funds crossed 6,954 wallets, with an mean equilibrium of 1.71 BTC per wallet.

This enactment importantly boosted THORChain’s transaction volume successful the past 2 weeks to much than $5.8 cardinal pursuing the Bybit breach. Blockchain expert EmberCN besides reported that the level earned astir $5.5 cardinal successful fees from these transactions.

Blockchain information researcher Taylor Monahan criticized THORChain, claiming its operation enables transgression activities nether the guise of decentralization. She argued that its strategy operates successful an isolated ecosystem that benefits insiders and facilitates wealth laundering.

Monahan said:

“[THORChain] exists successful its ain small bubble that’s mostly hard criminals and the insiders who person figured retired however to nett from said transgression flows straight oregon indirectly.”

However, Zhou stated that the funds moved done the level tin inactive beryllium traced. According to him, it volition beryllium captious to frost the funds successful the coming weeks earlier hackers effort to currency retired done centralized exchanges, over-the-counter (OTC) desks, and peer-to-peer (P2P) networks.

ExCH and OKX involvement

Meanwhile, Zhou besides reported that the stolen assets were moved done different platforms, including ExCH and OKX Web3 Proxy.

Zhou disclosed that 40,233 ETH—worth astir $100 million—moved done OKX’s Web3 proxy. Of this amount, 16,680 ETH remains traceable, portion 23,553 ETH ($65 million) requires further accusation from OKX to track.

Meanwhile, 79,655 ETH—around 16% of the full stolen—was funneled done ExCH, an speech that had antecedently denied facilitating illicit transactions for the Bybit hacker.

In a Feb. 23 statement, ExCH refuted claims that it had laundered funds for North Korea-linked entities but confirmed that:

“[An] insignificant information of funds from the ByBit hack yet entered our code 0xf1da173228fcf015f43f3ea15abbb51f0d8f1123, which was an isolated lawsuit and the lone portion processed by our exchange, fees from which we volition beryllium donated for the nationalist good.”

The station Bybit CEO says $1 cardinal of stolen assets inactive trackable contempt hackers mixing funds with THORchain appeared archetypal connected CryptoSlate.