A day after FTX filed for chapter, the agency’s scorching wallets had been drained by hackers, strolling away with practically $650 million in altcoins.
Now, after varied bridgings and on-chain chicanery, the attacker is left with holdings of greater than $367 million throughout varied main blockchains.
The attacker laundered proceeds utilizing decentralized exchanges (DEX) and cross-chain bridges, reported blockchain intelligence agency Arkham Intelligence.
A complete of virtually $20 million in PAXG was frozen throughout the attacker’s 4 addresses that maintain PAXG.
The attacker additionally tried to obfuscate fund transfers on BSC by ‘swapping’ tokens with the recipient handle set to a separate handle, 0x2cb. pic.twitter.com/dLxYyWPuNf
In response to Elliptic, cross-chain bridges are broadly utilized by hackers to launder stolen funds. “Chain hopping,” the motion of stolen funds between totally different blockchains, helps hackers evade tracing by enforcement businesses.
Right here’s the way it went down.
On November 12, 2022, roughly $650 million in ill-gotten funds had been routed from FTX’s scorching pockets to 2 pockets addresses, one on Solana and the opposite on Ethereum.
Since then, the hacker’s pockets handle bridged the funds to totally different blockchain networks, together with Binance Smart Chain, Polygon, and Avalanche, in accordance with information from respective block explorers.
Legislation enforcement businesses had been, nonetheless, capable of freeze nearly $20 million in Paxos Gold (PAXG) tokens linked to the assault on November 14.
Hacker’s pockets holdings throughout Ethereum, Binance Good Chain, Polygon, and Avalanche. Supply: Debank
In response to information from debank, the hacker’s pockets handle holds practically 228.5 million Ethereum (ETH) and eight,184.9 Paxos Gold (PAXG) tokens on Ethereum.
On Binance Good Chain, the pockets holds practically 108.454 million BNB and 1.685 million DAI stablecoin. Avalanche hosts about 3.970 million in Tether’s stablecoin USDT within the hacker’s pockets handle.
In response to information from Solscan, the hacker’s Solana pockets handle owns practically 144,999 SOL and 27.549 million USDT.
In whole, the hacker holds practically $338 million value of altcoins and is the Thirty fifth-largest Ethereum holder, in accordance with information from Etherscan.
Arkham Intelligence has but to answer Decrypt’s request for remark.
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