The CEO of Bybit, Ben Zhou, announced that 88% of the assets stolen from the exchange remain traceable, although hackers are increasing their efforts to obscure transactions using Bitcoin mixers.
According to Ben Zhou’s recent executive overview on March 20, 88.87% of the $1.4 billion in stolen cryptocurrency is still able to be tracked. This includes 86.29%, which is about $1.23 billion, converted into 12,836 Bitcoin (BTC) and dispersed across 9,117 wallets, averaging approximately 1.41 BTC each. Zhou noted that the hackers have begun utilizing Bitcoin mixers to complicate the transaction trail of the siphoned funds.
The initial theft involved Ethereum (ETH), which was later converted to Bitcoin. The conversion largely occurred through the cross-chain liquidity platform THORChain, facing criticism for its lack of cooperation in interrupting the hackers’ laundering activities, leading to the resignation of a key contributor in protest.
Once the funds are processed through mixers, they are distributed via various peer-to-peer vendors. Zhou expressed concern that this pattern is likely to escalate as additional funds are routed through mixers. Currently, 7.59% of the stolen crypto has gone untraceable.
To date, only 3.54% of the assets have been frozen. The initial batch of seized funds, valued at $42.89 million, was secured within a day due to coordinated efforts by Tether, THORChain, ChangeNOW, FixedFloat, Avalanche, CoinEX, Bitget, and Circle. Additionally, exchanges such as Binance and Huobi have frozen accounts suspected to be linked to the stolen assets, based on information from a blockchain analytics firm.
Along with the update on the status of the stolen funds, Zhou revealed that out of 5012 bounty reports submitted in the previous month, 63 were confirmed as legitimate. He reiterated the urgent need for assistance in unraveling mixer transactions, emphasizing that it is currently the biggest challenge facing Bybit.
Real-time tracking of the wallet addresses holding the stolen assets is available on the website launched by Bybit to facilitate community-driven recovery efforts. Individuals who provide information leading to the freezing of funds in these wallets will receive a reward equating to 5% of the frozen asset value, as part of Bybit’s bounty initiative.