The $960M Crypto Caper: Can You Really Hide on the Blockchain? 🤡

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In a delightful announcement via the ever-reliable X (formerly known as “that bird app”), dear Mr. Zhou confessed that 68.6% of the pilfered treasures remain quite “traceable,” leaving a cheeky 27.6% to frolic in the shadows, with a mere 3.8% tamed and frozen like a villain caught in a Victorian novel’s darkest cellar.

The Grand Ball of the Greatest Crypto Heist: Funds Performing the Charleston

This audacious escapade, targeting Bybit’s cold wallet—the modern-day equivalent of Fort Knox minus the guards—now claims the dubious honor of “largest exchange breach.” Our plucky hackers, with all the subtlety of a waltzing hippo, passed their loot through an elaborate ballet of laundering, beginning at none other than Wasabi Wallet, a Bitcoin mixer so private it would make a debutante blush. Apparently, Lazarus operatives were the chief choreographers in this clandestine dance.

“944 BTC (~$90 million) pirouetted through Wasabi,” mused Zhou.

Having mastered their pirouette, smaller treasures then tumbled through the likes of CryptoMixer, Tornado Cash, and Railgun—names that sound like a summer blockbuster but are, alas, tools of the shadowy trade. They leapt from this platform to that, dipping toes into these fashionable gatherings:

  • THORChain (As mighty as Thor’s hammer, but for coins)
  • eXch (Because who needs vowels in haste?)
  • Lombard (Fancy name, sneaky business)
  • LI.FI (Not your grandma’s finance)
  • Stargate (Where funds boldly go)
  • SunSwap (Because even cryptocurrencies like sunshine)

Eventually, these ephemeral assets mingled with peers in P2P and OTC bazaars—cryptic marketplaces where tracking is about as easy as finding a raven in a snowstorm.

A staggering USD 1.4 billion, or roughly half a million ETH, took a scenic route through mixers and bridges, ending up in the mysterious realms of P2P and OTC platforms. 68.57% remain in plain sight, 27.59% have vanished into the mist, and a modest 3.84% paused long enough to be frozen in their tracks.

— Ben Zhou (@benbybit)

The Ethereum Exodus: From Ether to Bitcoin, a Grand Masquerade in Thousands of Wallets

The bulk of the stolen Ether—432,748 ETH, a princely sum of $1.21 billion—donned a clever disguise, swapping into Bitcoin via the chivalrous THORChain, to the tune of 10,003 BTC scattered like confetti across 35,772 wallets.

Meanwhile, a timid $17 million worth of Ether lingers on the Ethereum blockchain, huddled in 12,490 wallets, possibly nursing wounds or awaiting its own starring role.

Despite this carnival of crypto capers, Mr. Zhou reassures us that Bybit, armed with blockchain sleuths and a posse from law enforcement, persists in a noble quest to reclaim these digital doubloons and unmask the entities who pulled the wool over so many eyes.

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2025-04-21 18:23