Bybit, the world's second-largest spot cryptocurrency exchange, was hacked on the 21st, with about 500,000 ETH (worth $1.46 billion) stolen, making it the largest theft in cryptocurrency history. Fortunately, with the support of large amounts of ETH deposited by Bitget, MEXC, and other industry institutions to Bybit, user funds can still be withdrawn normally, and no liquidity crisis has occurred.
Bybit buys over 50,000 ETH
Previously, the CEO of Bybit stated that they would not buy ETH to fill the gap. However, late last night, Lookonchain monitoring indicated that Bybit appears to be actively buying ETH.
On-chain data shows that yesterday, Bybit-related addresses (0x2E...1b77) received 100 million USDT from 0xEC...B5E76, and then around 4:30 pm transferred $50 million each to the OTC platforms Galaxy Digital and FalconX, and purchased 36,900 ETH. These ETH were deposited into Bybit last night.
Then, around 1 am this morning, Bybit additionally purchased nearly 17,500 ETH from Galaxy Digital through OTC, indicating its continued accumulation.
The purpose of these ETH is still unclear, and it is speculated that they may be used to replenish the exchange's reserves or to repay loans from industry peers. Whether Bybit will further purchase ETH remains to be observed.
ETH rebounds to nearly 2800
Upon this news, ETH rose 1.37% within 15 minutes and reached a high of $2798.07, almost recovering the decline after the Bybit hack on the 21st. As of the time of writing, it is currently trading at $2762.19, up 3.13% in the last 24 hours.
150,000 cmETH successfully recovered
It is worth mentioning that the 150,000 cmETH (about $43 million) sold by the North Korean hackers to Bybit have been successfully recovered.
According to the official announcement of the mETH Protocol, the North Korean hackers attempted to withdraw 15,000 cmETH through the mETH Protocol, but due to the 8-hour delay mechanism built into the protocol, the team was able to take timely action and ultimately prevent the unauthorized withdrawal, and restore the assets to the recovery address. The specific actions are as follows:
- Suspend cmETH withdrawals to prevent further unauthorized operations.
- Blacklist the attacker's wallet address to prevent further interaction with the protocol.
- Reduce the liquidity of cmETH on the Mantle Network L2 to mitigate potential risks.
mETH Protocol stated that cmETH has now resumed normal operation, user funds remain secure, and neither Mantle nor mETH Protocol itself have been affected.
