Bybit Reports 89% of Stolen $1.4B Crypto Remains Traceable After Hack
Nearly a month after suffering the largest crypto exchange hack in history, Bybit CEO Ben Zhou announced that approximately 89% of the stolen $1.4 billion remains traceable. Blockchain investigators continue their efforts to freeze and recover these funds.
Key Points:
- Bybit lost over $1.4 billion in digital assets, including liquid-staked Ether (stETH) and Mantle Staked ETH (mETH), in a cyberattack on February 21.
- Blockchain security firms identified North Korea’s Lazarus Group as the likely attacker.
- CEO Ben Zhou stated that 88.87% of the stolen funds remain traceable, 7.59% have gone dark, and 3.54% have been frozen.
- Most stolen funds (86.29%, or around $1.23 billion) were converted into Bitcoin (BTC) and distributed across thousands of wallets, primarily using mixers like Wasabi, CryptoMixer, Railgun, and Tornado Cash.
Bybit Offers Bounties to Recover Funds
Bybit has paid over $2.2 million to 12 bounty hunters who provided valuable information leading to the freezing of stolen funds. The exchange is offering a bounty of 10% of recovered funds to incentivize ethical hackers and blockchain investigators.
CEO Zhou emphasized the need for more blockchain “bounty hunters” to decode transaction patterns through cryptocurrency mixers, stating:
“In the past 30 days, 5012 bounty reports were received, of which 63 were valid bounty reports. We welcome more reports; we need more bounty hunters that can decode mixers as we need a lot of help there down the road.”
Security Flaws Highlighted by the Hack
The Bybit hack underscores vulnerabilities even in centralized exchanges with robust security measures. Analysts noted that attackers employed sophisticated social engineering techniques, tricking signers into approving malicious transactions that drained crypto from Bybit’s cold wallets.
Lucien Bourdon, an analyst at Trezor, commented:
“This incident is another stark reminder that even the strongest security measures can be undone by human error.”
The Bybit breach surpasses the previous largest crypto hack—the $600 million Poly Network exploit in August 2021—making it the largest crypto exchange hack to date.
