On Tuesday, Bybit CEO Ben Zhou updated the tracking status of the stolen funds on the social media platform X, stating that nearly 500,000 Ether (worth approximately $1.4 billion) had been stolen by hackers, with 77% currently traceable, 20% having “disappeared,” and 3% frozen.
The hacking incident at Bybit last month represents the largest theft in cryptocurrency history. Following analysis from various parties, it has been confirmed that the attack was carried out by the North Korean hacker group Lazarus Group. Subsequent investigations revealed that the actual target was a machine belonging to a Safe wallet developer, rather than a Bybit employee.
Ben Zhou pointed out that 83% of the stolen funds (417,348 ETH, worth approximately $1 billion) have been converted into Bitcoin (BTC) and dispersed into 6,954 wallets (an average of 1.71 BTC per wallet). Zhou stated that this week and the next are critical for freezing the funds, as the hackers will begin laundering money through exchanges, over-the-counter (OTC) transactions, and peer-to-peer (P2P) trading.
According to Ben Zhou, the hackers primarily utilized the privacy-oriented blockchain THORChain for money laundering, with the following detailed flow of funds:
– The amount of ETH exchanged through THORChain was 361,255 (worth approximately $900 million), accounting for 72%, and this portion is traceable.
– 79,655 ETH (approximately 16% of the stolen funds) remains untraceable due to laundering through the exchange eXch, and they are still awaiting a response from eXch.
– 40,233 ETH (approximately $100 million, accounting for 8%) was laundered through an OKX Web3 proxy, of which 16,680 ETH is traceable, while the remaining 23,553 ETH (approximately $65 million, about 5%) is untraceable, pending information from the OKX Web3 wallet department.
On-chain data analyst Yu Jin noted that the hackers’ money laundering process lasted ten days, during which THORChain processed transactions amounting to approximately $5.9 billion, generating $5.5 million in transaction fees.
