The $1.4 billion hack of Bybit is not only one of the largest cryptocurrency thefts in history but also shocked the crypto community due to the way hackers launder money. According to CEO Ben Zhou, the hacker group has started using many cryptocurrency mixing tools to obscure their tracks, making tracing harder than ever.
How Are Hackers Laundering Money?
According to reports from #bybit , hackers used at least 4 crypto mixers to launder the stolen money, including:
🔹 Wasabi
🔹 CryptoMixer
🔹 Railgun
🔹 Tornado Cash
Of which, about 193 $BTC have been sent to mixers, primarily Wasabi, before continuing to be transferred through peer-to-peer (P2P) trading platforms.
Ben Zhou emphasized:
👉 "Decoding transactions through mixers is the biggest challenge we face right now."
And this challenge may become increasingly complex as the hacker continues to funnel more stolen assets into mixing tools.
Where Did the Stolen Money Go?
📊 According to data from Bybit's Lazarus Bounty hunting program:
✔️ 88.87% of the stolen assets can still be traced.
✔️ 7.59% have "completely disappeared", almost impossible to recover.
✔️ 3.54% have been frozen thanks to cooperation with exchanges.
Another important development is that 86.29% of the $ETH stolen (equivalent to 440,091 ETH, worth ~1.23 billion USD) has been exchanged for Bitcoin and dispersed into 9,117 different wallets, averaging 1.41 BTC per wallet.
⏳ Two days after the hack, blockchain analysis company Elliptic detected signs of the hacker transferring this money into Bitcoin mixers. Among them, the anonymous exchange eXch is suspected to be a destination for the stolen funds.
However, eXch CEO Johann Roberts has denied these allegations, asserting that only a small amount of money was processed through their platform, not the entire amount stolen.
Lazarus Group – The "Boss" of Historical Hacks
The Bybit hack has been identified by the FBI as being carried out by the Lazarus Group from North Korea, making it the largest cryptocurrency theft in history.
🔍 The Lazarus Group continuously upgrades its money laundering tactics by using multiple crypto mixers simultaneously. But this also creates a problem for them:
💰 The more mixers used, the higher the laundering costs.
According to expert Andrew Fierman from blockchain analysis company Chainalysis:
👉 “Each layer of mixing increases the complexity of tracing, but the cost also increases accordingly.”
Another issue that the Lazarus Group faces is:
✔️ Small transactions are hard to track, but large transactions are easier to detect.
✔️ As long as this money has not been withdrawn into fiat currency, there is still a chance to trace it.
The Search for the Stolen Money Continues
Although the hacker has succeeded in laundering part of the assets, Bybit continues to strive for recovery.
🔹 The Lazarus Bounty program has received over 5,000 reports in just the last 30 days.
🔹 Among them, 63 verified reports are of real value.
📢 Ben Zhou calls for help from security experts, emphasizing that decoding transactions through mixers will require a lot of support in the near future.
What Consequences Will the Bybit Hack Lead To?
This hack has not only caused significant damage to Bybit but also raised many questions about the security of exchanges. It could also prompt governments and global regulators to tighten regulations on crypto mixers, a tool that has long been controversial.
⏳ There are still many unknowns in this investigation, but this is certainly not the end!
