CEO Ben Zhou of Bybit stated that $1.07 billion representing 77% of assets taken during the recent exchange security breach remains trackable but hackers managed to launder $280 million as 20% of stolen 499,000 ETH before investigators recovered $42 million which equaled 3% of stolen funds.
THORChain’s Role
The attackers repurposed 83% of the stolen ETH into Bitcoin by using THORchain to transform the assets before distributing 417,348 ETH equivalent to $1 billion across 6,954 wallets with an average of 1.71 BTC per wallet resulting in a substantial increase of the platform’s transaction volume up to $5.8 billion.
Platform Criticism
Thorchain has received a lot of backlash from many people. Taylor Monahan, a blockchain researcher ha stated that the decentralized nature of thorchain has enabled many criminal activities to occur. Furthermore he has stated that Thorchain’s blockchain operates in an indeependent network benefiting insiders to launder their money
Recovery Efforts
According to Zhou the 11 bounty hunters received $2.1 million from asset-freezing efforts with Mantle and Parswap along with ZachXBT leading the way since they need to lock down funds right away before hackers attempt selling on exchanges or through OTC desks and P2P networks.
Other Platforms Involved
Zhou disclosed that stolen assets used multiple platforms including OKX’s Web3 proxy which received 40,233 ETH valued at $100 million followed by ExCH which accepted 79,655 ETH worth approximately $16 million of the stolen funds. ExCH had previously refused involvement in illicit transactions yet acknowledged “an insignificant section of funds from the ByBit hack” reached their systems.
