Key Highlights
- The crypto exploiter 0x7E1 made $1.06M by buying 375 WBTC and selling 248 WBTC.
- The WBTC was sold at $93,023 per coin, earning profit in just a month.
- Other hackers have stolen millions since the start of 2026 through wallets and DeFi platforms, showing crypto theft remains high.
A crypto exploiter using the wallet tag “0x7E1” reportedly earned $1.06 million by trading Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC).
According to Lookonchain, the hacker sold 248 WBTC, valued at roughly $23.08 million, just two hours ago. Around a month ago, the same wallet purchased 375 WBTC for around $33.83 million at an average price of $90,203 per WBTC. Selling at $93,023 per coin resulted in an estimated profit of $1.06 million. In short, even illicit funds seem to follow the same rule as markets: buy low, sell high.
Who is this hacker?
While the case highlights a hacker trading with stolen funds, it’s worthwhile to note that back in September last year, the hacker was able to flush out over $42 million from UXLINK, a decentralized finance (DeFi) platform managing secure multi-chain tokens.
According to a previous report, the UXLINK team issued an urgent notice hours after the breach and confirmed that they were working on it. Later updates revealed unauthorized token minting and a phishing exploit.
The hacker created 542 million UXLINK (~$45.5 million) without permission and sent it to phishing addresses. This affected the token price, which immediately crashed 99.99% in a single day.
Crypto hack activity in early 2026
Reports of crypto-related exploits have continued into the start of 2026, despite earlier data showing that crypto hack losses dropped by 60% in December 2025 to about $76 million from $194 million as of November 2025.
Earlier today, a hacker who broke into a multi-signature crypto wallet was seen actively moving the stolen funds through Tornado Cash, a privacy-focused tool that hides the trail of transactions. Blockchain security firm PeckShield spotted the transaction and posted it on X. The transfers were made in batches of 100 ETH, a method hackers often use to avoid detection.
So far, the hacker has reportedly transferred about 6,300 ETH, worth roughly $19.4 million, through Tornado Cash in multiple batches of 100 ETH each. In addition, the attacker interacted with DeFi platforms. Around 1,000 ETH (~$3.24 million) was withdrawn from Aave and also sent through Tornado Cash.
Earlier this week, the Arbitrum network faced a $1.5 million exploit through a proxy contract linked to the USDGambit and TLP projects. The hacker moved the funds to Ethereum and deposited them into Tornado Cash.
In a separate incident last Thursday, a hacker lost part of their stolen funds after another attacker exploited a flaw in their smart contract. The contract had an “unprotected Uniswap V3 callback,” which allowed the second hacker to take the USDT stored inside.
Overall, 2025 has been a record year for crypto thefts, with hackers stealing an estimated $6.5 billion globally, 51% more than in 2024. However, this is a new year, and hopefully, with strong security and better awareness, attacks in the crypto space could be reduced compared to previous years.
