Ben Zhou, the CEO of Bybit, revealed that hackers have successfully laundered $280 million of the stolen $1.4 billion, making it impossible to trace. However, investigators continue to track and freeze the remaining $1.07 billion.
Zhou reported that criminals had already laundered $280 million, effectively rendering it untraceable. Since investigators can still track $1.07 billion, they are actively working to recover the stolen assets.
On March 4, Zhou provided an update, explaining how hackers moved 500,000 Ether during the February breach. He emphasized that security teams are continuing their efforts to block the criminals from escaping with the assets.
“Total hacked funds of USD 1.4bn around 500k ETH, 77% are still traceable, 20% has gone dark, 3% have been frozen,” Zhou said.
Zhou clarified that the phrase “gone dark” means hackers have successfully funneled 20% of the stolen funds through laundering mechanisms or hidden them using platforms that obscure transactions. Investigators believe North Korean hackers orchestrated the attack. The FBI believes so too.
Investigators have successfully frozen $42 million, which represents 3% of the stolen funds.
Hackers converted the stolen 417,348 ETH, valued at $1 billion, into Bitcoin and distributed it across 6,954 wallets, with each wallet holding approximately 1.71 BTC on average.
By spreading the funds across multiple wallets, the hackers have made tracking and recovering the assets more difficult.
Zhou stated that freezing more funds within the next one to two weeks will be crucial in preventing the attackers from cashing out through OTC markets, crypto exchanges, and P2P transactions.
The hackers primarily used THORChain, a decentralized exchange, to swap ETH and BTC for cash, according to Zhou.
In addition to THORChain, the attackers also utilized ExCH and OKX Web3 Proxy to move some of the stolen funds.
Zhou explained that $65 million in ETH remains recoverable, but the process will require intervention from the OKX Wallet team.
Bybit launched a bounty program targeted at the attackers a week ago, and has compensated eleven bounty hunters with $2.1 million for their assistance in freezing stolen assets.
On Feb. 25, Elliptic announced that its team had tracked over 11,000 cryptocurrency wallets linked to the Bybit hackers.
That same day, Bybit partnered with ZeroShadow, a Web3 security company, to conduct forensic blockchain investigations.
Bybit and ZeroShadow aim to trace the stolen funds, prevent further transfers, and recover as much of the stolen money as possible.
