Bybit was hacked today for around $1.4 billion in ether (ETH) and staked ether (stETH). Blockchain analyst ZachXBT first flagged the suspicious outflows, confirming the breach through his sources. Bybit’s CEO, Ben Zhou, later confirmed the attack, stating the hacker gained control of one specific cold wallet, transferring all its ETH.
The Largest Crypto Hack
As per data from Arkham Intelligence, $1 billion worth of ETH (400,000 ETH) has now been transferred to new wallets from the original hack address. Recent data from Arkham revealed that the Bybit Hacker currently holds $1.37B of ETH and has used 53 wallets so far. This exploit marks the largest crypto hack to date, accounting for 16% of all crypto hacks.
Bybit’s proof of reserves from yesterday showed it had 543,453 ETH, with 537,152 ETH owed to users, leaving an excess of 6,301 ETH. However, the hack drained 401,346 ETH, far surpassing the excess held by Bybit. Before the hack, Bybit’s reserve assets were valued at $16.2 billion. The stolen funds, totaling 401,346 ETH, represent 8.64% of the exchange’s total reserves.
Bybit CEO Ben Zhou confirmed that the exchange won’t buy ETH right away to cover the hack losses because of the large volume. However, he assured that 80% of the required ETH has already been secured via a bridge loan.
Where Did the Stolen ETH Go?
After taking 401,346 ETH, the hacker dispersed the funds across several wallets: 39 addresses received 10,000 ETH each and 9 additional addresses also received 10,000 ETH each. Analysts beleive that this is likely an attempt to launder the stolen funds by spreading them across multiple wallets to complicate tracing.
Ether, BTC Crash
Bitcoin (BTC) dropped to around $97,000 after briefly approaching $100,000 earlier in the day, while ether (ETH) fell by almost 4%, dropping below the $2,700 mark. The sudden price drop triggered the liquidation of about $100 million in leveraged derivatives positions, mostly from long traders expecting prices to rise.
The crypto market is reversing earlier gains in the day and is now in a downtrend. The sell-off is much larger than in the stock market, which is also down. While the impact may be temporary, the market declines show signs of mild investor panic, which is further worsened by the weak performance of U.S. stocks.
