North Korean Hackers have laundered $1.4 billion worth of ETH, mostly swapped to BTC through THORChain. The protocol also earned $5.5 million in fees for "facilitating" the money laundering process.
Bybit Hacker has laundered $1.4 billion worth of ETH, mostly through THORChain
Amidst the market downturn due to Trump officially imposing taxes on Canada, Mexico, and China, there is another selling pressure coming from the Bybit hacker.
According to onchain news reports, the attacker's wallet has laundered 499,000 ETH, equivalent to $1.4 billion stolen from Bybit in the largest hack in crypto history. The money laundering process started on 21/02 and lasted for 10 days.
The hacker has laundered all the 499,000 ETH ($1.39 billion) stolen from Bybit, and the whole process took 10 days. THORChain, the main channel used by the hacker to launder money, received $5.9 billion in transaction volume and $5.5 million in handling fees.…
— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) March 4, 2025
Bybit CEO Ben Zhou continued to update that:
3.4.25 Executive Summary on Hacked Funds:
— Ben Zhou (@benbybit) March 4, 2025
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…
Of the stolen ETH:
- 77% are still traceable
- 20% have gone dark
- 3% have been frozen
417,348 ETH, equivalent to $1 billion, or 83% of the total stolen assets, have been converted to BTC in 6,954 wallets.
The CEO said this week and next week are crucial to freezing these Bitcoins, as they will be deposited on exchanges and sold through OTC, P2P.
As Coin68 reported, THORChain is the main protocol that North Korean hackers used to dump. And therefore, this platform earned $5.5 million in fees for processing $5.9 billion in transaction volume.
More specifically:
- 361,255 ETH, equivalent to 72% of the stolen funds, have been "smoothly" laundered through THORChain;
- 79,655 ETH, equivalent to 16%, have been laundered through eXch. And since the exchange did not cooperate to update information, this asset is still untraceable.
- 40,233 ETH, or 8%, have been laundered through the OKX Web3 Wallet and OKX needs to provide information.
THORChain and eXch have become the focus of community criticism for colluding with criminals. Especially THORChain, the project team did not make any effort to try to prevent money laundering, but still let its protocol operate as usual.
In 10 days flat, DPRK has bridged all ~500,000 ETH (~$1.3 billion USD) stolen from Bybit to Bitcoin.
— Tay 💖 (@tayvano_) March 4, 2025
Kim Jong Un sends his deepest gratitude to @THORChain, @asgardex, and @exchcx.
Without their faux-cypherpunk grandstanding + blatant lies, this would have never been possible. pic.twitter.com/aWuDYhwmRt
While previously, THORChain could vote to close ThorFi in "no time". Therefore, the community raises very big questions about the governance and transparency, decentralization of this protocol.
The impact of the money laundering can be clearly seen in the Ethereum price. The Ether token has been continuously dropping, losing 26% of its value during the money laundering period (dropping from $2,780 to $2,060).
7-day ETH price chart, screenshot from CoinGecko at 01:20 PM on 04/03/2025
Compiled by Coin68
