TL;DR
- Bybit has managed to trace almost 70% of the $1.4 billion stolen in the February cyberattack, while 27.6% of the funds are no longer traceable and only 3.8% has been frozen.
- Most of the funds passed through mixers like Wasabi and additional tools such as Tornado Cash, CryptoMixer, and Railgun, before being moved to platforms like THORChain.
- The reward program launched by Bybit in February has received over 5,400 reports, resulting in payments of up to $2.3 million.
Bybit reported significant progress in tracking the funds stolen during the February cyberattack, attributed to the Lazarus group. According to its CEO, Ben Zhou, almost 70% of the $1.4 billion in stolen cryptocurrencies are still traceable, while the rest has been dispersed using techniques that make tracking more difficult.
What Happened to the Funds?
The breakdown presented indicates that 27.6% of the funds are no longer traceable, and only 3.8% has been frozen. The loss of traceability is primarily due to the use of mixers and cross-chain bridges that allow assets to be moved between different blockchains.
A large portion of the funds first passed through Wasabi, one of the most commonly used mixers by the group, and then through additional tools like Tornado Cash, CryptoMixer, and Railgun. Later, platforms such as THORChain, LiFi, Stargate, eXch, and SunSwap were used to perform swaps between networks and make tracking more difficult.
Zhou explained that around 944 Bitcoins, equivalent to $90 million, circulated through Wasabi before being split. He also detailed that 432,748 Ethereum, valued at approximately $1.21 billion, were transformed into 10,003 BTC through THORChain. This conversion facilitated the dispersion of the funds into more than 35,000 wallets. Despite these maneuvers, around $17 million in ETH still remain on Ethereum, distributed across almost 12,500 addresses.
Bybit Doesn’t Achieve Major Results with Its Reward Program
To counter these movements, Bybit launched a reward program in February aimed at gathering information to freeze the stolen funds. Over the past two months, the program has received more than 5,400 reports, of which only 70 were useful. So far, the initiative has paid out $2.3 million in rewards. One of the most effective interventions was made by the Mantle network, which managed to freeze $42 million related to the theft.
Zhou emphasized the need for more analysts capable of understanding how mixers and evasion techniques work. Although the results show progress, the scale of the laundering and the sophistication of the methods used remain a challenge.
