The price of Ethereum dropped significantly following panic-selling caused by the ByBit hack that led to the loss of tokens worth $1.5 billion. However, ETH has shown strong resilience as prices rebound after the hack. On the day, the price of Ethereum is up by over 3% outperforming all coins in the top 10 range based on market capitalization.
This surge can be attributed to ByBit’s crisis management plan of buying ETH tokens over-the-counter (OTC) to boost its reserve. With the Dubai-based exchange now having recouped some of the lost coins through loans, selling pressure around ETH is easing up.
ByBit Adds 71,755 ETH To Boost Its Reserve After the Breach
As confirmed in a report shared to Blockchain News by 10x Research, ZachXBT and Arkham Intelligence confirmed that the ByBit hack was done by the North Korean Lazarus Group. However, despite offering a 10% bounty to any white hat hacker that helps the exchange recover the stolen funds, ByBit has continued to acquire ETH via OTC to help boost its reserve.
According to Lookonchain, Bybit bought an additional 71,755 ETH tokens. These tokens are valued at $197 million and were bought over-the-counter. Nonetheless, this is not the first purchase of ETH tokens by ByBit since the hack that happened on Friday Feb.21,2025.
Update: #Bybit appears to have bought 71,755 $ETH($197M) via #OTC.https://t.co/Fb4XEvvJij pic.twitter.com/jamJLrSSVC
— Lookonchain (@lookonchain) February 23, 2025
Lookonchain had reported earlier that ByBit bought 36,893 ETH from Galaxy Digital and FalconX through OTC. For this purchase, the exchange used 100M USDT to buy these coins at the $2,711 price level.
ByBit’s ETH Reserve Is Bouncing Back Gradually
After the attack the Bybit ETH reserves plummeted from 443,691 ETH to 63,807 ETH. However, they have since recovered to 159,702 ETH as shown by CryptoQuant data. ByBit has managed to push the reserve to the current level through loans from various exchanges and institutions.
The exchange also confirmed that its services are fully operational despite the hack. “Despite facing one of the most significant security incidents in financial history, all Bybit functions and products remain fully operational. Trading, deposits, and other platform services continue to work as usual,” an official announcement read.
Additionally, ByBit has received industry-wide acknowledgement of how they have handled the incident. For instance, the founder of Ethena Labs Guy Young echoed ByBit’s crisis management saying that he has never seen a team handle a crisis so well.
Young wrote on X; “Firstly want to call out the response from @benbybit and the team. Don’t think I’ve ever seen a team handle crisis communications as well as they did. Stood up to face the music immediately to provide transparent answers to the community.”
Price of ETH Pumps Over 3% Surge As ByBit Reserve Recovers
The price of Ethereum has pumped with the ByBit reserve recovering well and selling pressure fading away. Data on Coinmarketcap shows that ETH is currently trading at $2,805.98 indicating a 3.67% surge on the day. This surge shows an increase in upward momentum after the price of Ethereum fell from $2,847 to $2,618.5 upon news of the ByBit hack.
Trading activity around ETH has also slowed down over the last 24 hours. This is clear from the trading volume which has dropped by 43.34% in the same period. ETH currently has a trading volume of $18.01 billion.
The ByBit incident underscores the great risks associated with crypto. While the volatility of ETH seems to be fading, future developments such as sell-off of the stolen tokens by the hackers could impact the price of ETH.
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