All eyes are on TOKEN2049, Asia’s biggest crypto event, happening from April 30 to May 1. With top leaders expected to take the stage, one major question stands out—will Bybit CEO Ben Zhou address the $1.4 billion hack that hit his exchange?
On April 21, Zhou published an executive summary on Twitter that contained some startling information. It noted that around 500,000 ETH was stolen, which was equivalent to $1.4 billion at the time. Thus, 68.57% of the hacked funds are still identifiable, while 27.59% have disappeared. Only 3.84% have been frozen.
The summary notes that the untraceable crypto primarily passed through mixers and then to bridges and peer-to-peer and OTC platforms. Zhou identified Wasabi as the main mixer used, one associated with DPRK activities. Some of the washed Bitcoin also passed through Tornado Cash, Cryptomixer, and Railgun.
Interestingly, about 432,748 ETH (roughly $1.21 billion) has been swapped for Bitcoin using Thorchain. Of this, 67.25%—or 10,003 BTC—now sits in several wallets.
To track down the culprits, Bybit has received 5,443 bounty reports in the last two months. Only 70 were valid, but the hunt is still on. Zhou is now calling for more bounty hunters to help decode mixers and recover the stolen assets.
TOKEN2049 Dubai, hosted at the spectacular Madinat Jumeirah, will attract more than 15,000 participants from over 4,000 companies globally. The list of the speakers is impressive: Vitalik Buterin (Ethereum co-founder), Richard Teng (Binance CEO), Anatoly Yakovenko (Solana co-founder), Balaji Srinivasan (The Network State founder), Arthur Hayes (Maelstrom CIO), Paolo Ardoino (Tether CEO), and Jeremy Allaire (Circle CEO).
With TOKEN2049 around the corner, many expect Zhou to shed light on the incident. If he does, it could be one of the most talked-about moments of the entire event.
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