Bybit’s CEO has said that it is working against the clock to retrieve the stolen crypto worth $1.4 billion by hackers from North Korea.
Ben Zhou, in an update to X (formerly Twitter), revealed that 20% Ethereum taken in last month's audacious attack has already "gone dark."
Only 3% of the funds have been successfully frozen.
Nansen’s data shows that the people responsible for this have been found. "officially emptied their wallet," From $1.4 billion down to $1.429 within 10 days.
Last week, Arkham Intelligence had closely monitored the hackers as they moved this Ethereum like clockwork—making two to three transactions a minute for 45 minutes, and then taking a 15-minute break.
Zhou claims that 83% of stolen funds were converted to ETH. BitcoinTHORChain is a decentralized cryptocurrency exchange.
He also said that 16% was lost through the non KYC trading platform EXch. The exchange has previously denied allegations of laundering crypto on behalf of North Korea—and on the BitcoinTalk forum, said it has been the victim of "misleading statements" There is FUD.
Zhou has written that the week ahead is "critical" To freeze funds prior to their clearing through exchanges as well as peer-to-peer and over-the counter platforms.
Bybit launched a new aggressive program that offers up to $140,000,000 in rewards. "declared war on the Lazarus Group," Hacking collective sponsored by the government that has previously been implicated in multiple million-dollar hacks.
Zhou's update confirms that a total of $2.17 million has been paid out to 11 bounty hunters so far—led by the likes of Mantle, Paraswap and the on-chain sleuth ZachZBT.
Bybit pledged 10% of its frozen funds to be rewarded, which means that just a fraction of the crypto stolen has been recovered.
Stacy Elliott is the editor.
