In a whirlwind of crypto chaos, the exchange is hot on the trail of stolen funds, putting the hammer down on suspicious wallets, and teaming up with law enforcement to halt any more shady transactions.
The mastermind behind the massive Bybit heist is already up to some sneaky tricks, laundering a jaw-dropping 18% of the swiped funds in just 60 hours! This crypto bandit is using THORChain to zip around with cross-chain swaps, converting ETH into other crypto goodies at lightning speed.
A spicy update from blockchain analysis wizards EmberCN has unveiled that over the past couple of days, the hacker magically laundered 89,500 ETH. That's a cool $224 million, or about 18% of the nearly half a million ETH snatched from Bybit on February 21.
This crypto caper is pulling off most of their moves through THORChain, a decentralized cross-chain exchange famous for flying under the radar. Previously, the blockchain sleuth ZachXBT pointed fingers at eXch for laundering at least $35 million, a claim the non-KYC exchange has fiercely denied.
The folks at Arkham Intelligence are watching this show unfold, noting that the perp is going full throttle, pulling off two to three transactions every minute. Interestingly, they've spotted a quirky pattern: a 15-minute breather every 45 minutes, hinting that the laundering might just be a hands-on operation.
With this breakneck pace, onlookers predict this crypto magician could swap the remaining coins into other digital currencies like BTC and DAI in just a couple of weeks.
In another twist, the FBI has North Korean Park Jin Hyok on their radar, linking him to the notorious Lazarus Group, a cybercrime syndicate tied to Pyongyang. Security gurus suspect this shadowy group is behind the epic Bybit caper.
Hyok is no stranger to the crypto crime scene, with past hits on platforms like the $625 million Ronin Bridge and the $100 million raid on Harmony Bridge last year.
Bybit's CEO Ben Zhou isn't taking this lying down; the exchange is on a mission to hunt down and reclaim the stolen loot. They've rolled out an API to blacklist any suspicious wallets tied to the attack.
The cavalry is coming in strong, with law enforcement, cybersecurity pros, and industry specialists all joining forces to track the hacker’s every move and stop any further dirty dealings.
They've also brought in the big guns at blockchain forensic firm zeroShadow, working to trace and freeze the rogue assets in real-time. Stay tuned, because this crypto thriller is just heating up!
