One of the biggest cryptocurrency exchanges in the world, Bybit, lost a whopping $1.5 billion worth of Ethereum through a ginormous security breach. The breach, one of the largest crypto breaches in history, has been linked to North Korea’s Lazarus Group, reports have claimed. The breach shocked the cryptocurrency world with speculation around rolling back Ethereum to try to recover the stolen money or otherwise.
The Bybit Hack: What Happened
Bybit was compromised on February 21, 2025, when the exchange lost around $1.5 billion worth of Ethereum. The hackers took advantage of a vulnerability in Bybit’s smart contract platform, and they withdrew from exchange wallets. The hack was realized within hours, but the stolen Ethereum had already been moved into a chain of anonymous wallets by then.
After the hack, Bybit suspended all Ethereum transactions and is also reaching out to cybersecurity professionals to audit the hack. The CEO, Ben Zhou, has assured customers that no other coins have been compromised and customers’ funds are secure.
Suspicion Surrounds Lazarus Group for Carrying Out the Hack
Others have argued that the North Korean Lazarus Group is most probably responsible for it. The group, which had been assigned to conduct high-quality cyberattacks against banks, had previously targeted cryptocurrency exchanges, breaking into them and stealing billions of digital money.
Lazarus Group also launched some of the most significant crypto hacks, such as the $600 million 2022 Ronin Network hack, Wazirx hack, KuCoin ($285M), etc. The authorities believe that the money has a means of being laundered to fund North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs.
Debate Erupts Over Potential Ethereum Rollback
The Bybit hack has once more triggered a heated debate among Ethereum supporters on whether the blockchain can be rolled back to revert the hack and get back the money stolen to Bybit. The rollback would entail cancelling the transactions utilized in the hack and getting back the stolen funds to Bybit.
Rollback proponents such as sentiment leader Samson Mow believe that this is the sole way to ensure the integrity of the Ethereum network. “A $1.5 billion heist erodes trust in the whole network,” Mow told an interviewer.
But warning bells ring that reversing would be an unsafe precedent, on the edge of gaining control of the blockchain and sabotaging its very founding principles of decentralization and immutability. The Ethereum community remains strongly divided on this topic, with no resolution in the works.
What’s Next for Bybit and Ethereum?
Bybit assured the victims of being refunded and also improving its security measures so that the breach will never occur in the future. The exchange is also in close cooperation with law enforcement authorities to retrieve the lost funds and apprehend the hackers.
Though the Ethereum developers are attempting to address the issue of a rollback, there are some programmers seeking technical solutions to retrieve the money and there are some programmers who feel that the blockchain must be made immutable at all costs.
Up to now, the whereabouts of the Bybit hack have served as a harsh reminder of the vulnerability in the crypto community and the constant presence of threat that is offered by such highly developed hacking groups as Lazarus.
