Crypto Heist Chaos: $1.4B Vanishes Like Socks in a Washing Machine 🧦💸

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So, Bybit—yeah, that crypto exchange we all pretend to understand—just *had* its own version of a digital bank robbery. Cue dramatic music. Alleged North Korean hackers, because of course, pulled the rug out from under the crypto world to the tune of around $1.5 billion. Not chump change.

And guess what? Roughly $300 million of that hot virtual cash has vanished into the ether, never to be seen again. CEO Ben Zhou (not running for office yet) spilled the tea on X (yes, Twitter had an identity crisis) about where these ill-gotten gains are chilling now.

The CEO’s Play-by-Play of the Crypto Clown Show

$1.4 billion stolen, mostly 500,000 Ethereum tokens. Ethereum, if you were wondering, is not a cocktail (disappointing, right?).

68.57% of those stolen coins are still somewhat following the yellow brick blockchain road—traceable, basically. But 27.59%? Poof. Gone Dark. As in “Where the heck did my money go?” dark. Then there’s a modest 3.84% that’s been frozen—probably by some very serious-faced regulators doing their best “stop right there, criminal” routine.

These sneaky funds took a joyride through mixers (not your kitchen blender but close), which scramble crypto origins like a bad cocktail recipe. The favorite stops include Wasabi—a mixer tied to North Korea-themed mischief—CryptoMixer, Tornado Cash (ironically named, huh?), and Railgun (sounds like James Bond tech).

Our hackers didn’t just stop at one platform; nope, they hopped across Thorchain, eXch, Lombard, LiFi, Stargate, and SunSwap—the crypto equivalent of a subway transfer shuffle—to eventually cash out via peer-to-peer and over-the-counter schemes. In other words, turning digital wizardry into cold, hard fiat cash.

Where’d the Loot Go?

More than 432,000 ETH (Ethereum, not ethereal ghosts) took the blue pill and converted into Bitcoin—via Thorchain, for those who like the specifics. That’s about $1.21 billion worth of crypto wizardry. From there, 67.25% morphed into 10,003 shiny Bitcoins split across 35,772 wallets. Each wallet’s holding less than half a Bitcoin—tiny crypto piggy banks.

Meanwhile, 1.17% of ETH is chilling on the Ethereum blockchain itself, scattered over 12,490 wallets. And about 944 BTC (approx $90 million, give or take a few Lambos) danced their way into the Wasabi mixer, while some made the Gemini jump back to Ethereum. Crypto hopscotch at its finest.

On the bright side—or maybe the desperate side—Bybit has already garnered 5,443 bounty reports in the last 60 days. Out of those, 70 seem promising enough to drag back some of the lost loot. Ben is essentially rallying the crypto Sherlocks out there to help unravel this mess before it becomes a Netflix true crime special.

Crypto Heist Chaos

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2025-04-22 08:57