Lazarus Group, a notorious group of North Korean hackers, recently left the crypto market in shock after stealing over $1.4 billion from ByBit. While the Dubai-based crypto exchange made a significant milestone recovering its full Ethereum reserve, the exchange is still making efforts to recover the stolen tokens.
In the cyber attack that was deemed the “largest hack in the history of crypto,” the attackers used DelegateCall to swap ByBit’s wallet with a malicious contract.” According to Cyfrin Audits, the shocking part is that the hackers “compromised THREE separate multi-sig signers simultaneously, bypassing what should have been a strong security measure.”
A previous report by on-chain data tracking platform Lookonchain, indicated that the hacker already began laundering the funds through Thorchain. Because of the magnitude and size of the hack, the crypto community is still questioning whether these coins will ever be recovered.
ByBit Hack Update; 77% Traceable, 20% Gone Dark and 3% Frozen
According to a post on X by the co-founder and CEO of ByBit Ben Zhou earlier today (Mar. 4, 2025), all hope is not lost yet. Zhou offered an update into the matter stating that a huge chunk of the tokens are still traceable. Additionally, others have gone dark and some have been frozen.
3.4.25 Executive Summary on Hacked Funds:
Total hacked funds of USD 1.4bn around 500k ETH, 77% are still traceable, 20% has gone dark, 3% have been frozen.
Breakdown:
– 83% (417,348 ETH, ~$1B) have been converted into BTC with 6,954 wallets (Average 1.71 btc each) . This and…— Ben Zhou (@benbybit) March 4, 2025
Zhou stated that out of the “total hacked funds of USD 1.4bn around 500k ETH, 77% are still traceable, 20% has gone dark, 3% have been frozen.” He further broke it down indicating that hackers converted 417,348 ETH coins into BTC with 6,954 wallets involved. Each of these wallets holds an average 1.71 BTC each with the coins converted amounting to 83%.
The “hacker mostly used Thorchain to clear ETH to BTC.” According to Zhou’s update, Thorchain was involved in the conversion of 361,255 ETH or rather $0.9B. This amounts to 72% of all the stolen coins and can be traced. However, 79,655 ETH (16%) tokens went dark through ExCH and ByBit is still waiting for an update.
Another 40,233 ETH was laundered through the OKX web3 proxy. The tokens amount to $100M and are 8% of the stolen coins. Nonetheless, 16,680 ETH of these tokens can be traced. But, 23,553 ETH or rather 5%)is untraceable and ByBit is awaiting info from OKX Wallet. Furthermore, 15,000 ETH which is 3% of the funds has been frozen.
Hackers Launder All The 499,395 ETH Through Thorchain
On-chain data tracking platform Lookonchain, reported earlier today that the hacker managed to launder all the stolen funds though Thorchain. The post read; “the Bybit hacker has laundered all the stolen 499,395 $ETH($1.04B currently), mainly through THORChain.”
Thorchain handled $5.9B in transactions and pocketed up to $5.5M in fees from the transaction. Following this update the crypto community has mixed reactions about Thorchain with some turning to slamming it.
As shared by Alva, there’s “skepticism on THORChain’s security and criticism for aiding the laundering.” The post further highlighted that “trust in centralized exchanges is shaky, pushing users towards decentralized options.”
Final Thoughts Regarding the ByBit Hack
Whether the funds will be recovered or not remains a matter of time. The CEO of ByBit expressed that “this and the coming week is very critical for fund freezing as the funds will start to clear at exchanges, OTC and p2p.” ByBit’s incident depicts that the crypto sector has become a prime target for attackers and thus more measures are required to mitigate such incidents moving forward.
#blockchain #crypto, #decentralized, #distributed, #ledger
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