Bybit -CEO confirms that $ 280 million of USD stolen are no longer understandable

• Bybit -CEO has explained that 20% of $ 1.4 billion stolen from the exchange are now not understandable.
• hacker converted through Thorchain in ETH in ETH in etc. and spread it.
• So far, 11 Bounty hunters have frozen 42 million US dollars of the stolen funds.

In a breathtaking update, Bybit -CEO Ben Zhou showed that 280 million US dollars of the 1.4 billion US dollars that were stolen from the cryptocurrency exchange in February.

3.4.25 Summary of the executive to chopped funds:
Total hacked found of USD around 500,000 ETH, 77% are still understandable, 20% have become dark, 3% were frozen.
dismantling:
- 83% (417.348 ETH, ~ 1b) were converted into BTC with 6,954 wallpoons (an average of 1.71 BTC). That and ...

- Ben zhou (@benbybit) 4. March 2025

The security violation attributed to the North Korean Hacking group Lazarus put about 500,000 ether (Eth) from the reserves of Bybit. While the majority of the funds in the blockchain remains visible, the announcement of ZHOUS underlines the challenges that investigators face because they run against the time against the time before the hackers fill up.

The attack used weaknesses in Safewallet, a Bitbit used item pocket platform. Lazarus Hackers endangered the device of a developer and injected malicious code with which they were able to vacuum almost 1.5 billion US dollars in ETH during a routine transmission.

Despite the quick action of BYBIT, to restore 1: 1 support of customer assets within a few days, the hackers have relentlessly postponed the stolen funds on several platforms, which made it difficult to restore the restoration.

hacker used Thorchain to fragment funds

A significant part of the stolen ether -417,348 ETH worth around 1 billion US dollars -was converted into Bitcoin (BTC) and scattered over 6,954 tolases, each on average 1.71 btc.

Zhou found that 72% of the transport or 361.255 ETH worth 900 million US dollars by Thorchain, a decentralized exchange, which is known for its privacy, was led.

Thorchain alone worked on a record of 4.66 billion US dollars of swaps in the week until March 2, with these illegal transactions achieving more than 5.5 million dollars of over $ 5.5 million. This fragmentation and conversion strategy has increasingly difficult to pursue the funds for blockchain forensic teams.

In the meantime, 20% of the stolen assets - incredibly 79,655 ETH - have become "dark", which means that they were through platforms such as stock exchanges and not understandable.

Zhou emphasized that another 40,233 ETH worth 100 million US dollars went through OKXS Web3 proxy. Of these, 23,553 ETH (65 million US dollars) are not understandable without further cooperation between the OKX wallet team, while 16,680 ETH are still within reach of the investigators.

The CEO emphasized that the next one to two weeks are central, as the hackers are preparing to derive their transport via stock exchanges, trading school (over-the-counter) and peer-to-peer (Peer-to-Peer).

Bybit has entered bounty hunters in the middle of freezer effort

To thwart the hackers, Bitbit has used the help of bounty hunters and security companies.

Zhou reported that 11 parties -including prominent players such as Mantle, Paraswap and Blockchain Sluth ZachxBT -frozen 42 million US dollars or 3% of stolen means.

So far, Bitbit has paid 2.178 million US dollars to USDT to these contributors as part of his restoration efforts, with further details available at Lazarusbounty.com. On February 25, the stock exchange also teamed up with Web3 security company Zeroshadow to improve its Blockchain forensics and maximize the restoration of assets.

Despite these efforts, the hackers show no signs of slowing down. The Blockchain Analytics company Elliptic has identified over 11,000 bridles that are connected to the Lazarus Group, which suggests a extensive network that has covered its traces.

🚨 Free real-time bybit-exploit data 🚨 🚨

elliptic started a free data feed with illegal addresses associated with the Bitbit Exploit.

🔍 Why it is important:

✅ Minimize the exposure to sanctions
✅ Stolen to wash stolen funds
✅ Strengthen the crypto safety

Access via CSV or API ⬇️… pic.twitter.com/u9qa2tc8ZZ

- elliptisch (@Elliptic) 25. February 2025

Zhou stated that a further 65 million US dollar on ETH could be recovered with the support of OKX, but the time is running out, since the attackers continue to operate the laundry operation via platforms such as Beut and OKX Web3 Proxy.