Famous crypto exchange Bybit was hit with one of the biggest crypto hacks in history, losing about $1.4 billion to the exploiter who breached the exchange Ethereum (ETH) cold wallet by compromising the UI and stealing over 400,000 ETH. Thankfully, according to an X post from the victim exchange’s official account, a few crypto firms have helped it to recover about $43 million from the hacker.
A coordinated effort led to the freezing of $42.89M in just one day. Thanks to the following teams for their swift action: @Tether_to: Flagged address and froze 181K USDT @THORChain: Blocked the blacklist @ChangeNOW_io: Froze 34 ETH @FixedFloat: Froze 120K USDC + USDT…
— Bybit (@Bybit_Official) February 23, 2025
$43 Million Secured
Famous stablecoin issuer Tether froze about 181,000 USDT from the hacker-labeled address. Changenow, a crypto exchange, froze about 84 ETH worth over $86,000, while the FixedFloat exchange seized about $120,000. Meanwhile, about five other crypto firms also contributed significantly to the recovery of $42.9 million from the exploiter, signaling unity and togetherness in the digital asset ecosystem.
Notably, famous Binance crypto exchange co-founder Changpeng Zhao has also been a backbone for Bybit by constantly offering suggestions to its CEO, Ben Zhou, and boosting users’ confidence via his constant posts about the issue on X.
New Suspicious Wallet Identifier API
Following the hack, Bybit has taken steps to ensure the incident doesn’t repeat itself by tightening its security measures while trying to recover funds from the exploiter, who has been moving the stolen funds in little bits to various addresses.
In a recent update, it has launched a new and more functional Application Programming Interface (API) to update the blacklist of already identified suspicious wallet addresses constantly. Moreover, it is currently working on the HackBounty platform project, which is designed to track hacker’s actions based on thousands of clues gathered from the industry and seamlessly update the blacklist constantly.
Bybit Hacker Plays Smart
According to on-chain exploit investigator ZachXBT, the popular North Korean hacker Lazarus Group is responsible for the massive exploit. Since the hack was identified and reported, the exploiter has not rested. The group has linked addresses tied to the Bybit hack with the BingX and Phemex exchange hack addresses.
Thereafter, the group laundered money by listing Solana memecoins via Pump.fun. It moved about 60 Solana (SOL) to an address to list a token named QinShihuang, and it has traded up to $26 million market capitalization. Pump.fun has swiftly removed the hacker-linked memecoin from its frontend.
Meanwhile, Bybit’s CEO has promised to keep the community updated on the hack and funds recovery process, boosting customers’ confidence in the exchange.
