Bybit CEO Ben Zhou has revealed that hackers responsible for stealing around 500,000 ETH, valued at approximately 1.4 billion, increasingly rely on crypto mixers to obscure their tracks.
Despite these efforts, about 88.87% of the stolen funds remain traceable, 7.59% have gone entirely dark, and 3.54% have been frozen.
According to the executive summary released on March 20, 2025, hackers are utilizing popular mixing services such as Wasabi, CryptoMixer, Railgun, and TornadoCash to complicate tracing efforts. The report highlights that 86.29% of the hacked funds — equivalent to 440,091 ETH (around 1.23 billion) — have already been converted into 12,836 BTC. These assets are spread across 9,117 wallets, each holding an average of 1.41 BTC.
Investigators have observed an uptick in using Bitcoin mixers, with 193 BTC reportedly routed through the Wasabi Mixer. After mixing, the funds are funnelled to various peer-to-peer (P2P) vendors. This trend will likely continue as hackers increasingly leverage mixers to mask their transactions.
Decoding transactions from these mixers has emerged as the primary challenge in tracking the stolen assets. In the past 30 days alone, authorities have received 5,012 bounty reports, but only 63 have been deemed valid. This growing complexity in mixer-based transactions has led to an urgent call for skilled bounty hunters to assist in tracing the movement of stolen funds. Bybit encourages anyone with relevant expertise to step forward and support the ongoing investigation. Real-time updates and details on how to assist are available on LazarusBounty.com.
In a related development, Zhou has addressed the recent liquidation of a significant Ethereum (ETH) position on Hyperliquid, highlighting the challenges of high-leverage trading on decentralized and centralized exchanges. A whale with a long ETH position worth around 300 million, using a 15 million margin at 50x leverage, was involved in the incident. Zhou emphasized the risks of high-leverage trading and the necessity of effective risk management strategies on trading platforms.
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