A hacker known for stealing $53 million worth of ETH from Radiant Capital, a multi-chain DeFi lending protocol, in October 2024, is now actively trading Ethereum (ETH). The unknown hacker is skillfully capitalizing on market changes to increase their stolen money, according to recent on-chain data.
Hacker Turns Trader
Recall that in October 2024, an unknown person or group that hacked Radiant Capital realized 21,957 ETH (valued at approximately $53 million). Following Ethereum’s recent surge to over $4,500, the hacker’s loot had almost doubled in USD value to be worth over $102 million. Hence, the hacker sold 9,631 ETH last week for an impressive $43.94 million in DAI, averaging $4,562 per coin, thus locking in some of his profits.
However, the crypto market has seen a correction this week, and the hacker appears to be capitalizing on this. In the early hours of Wednesday, on-chain data shows that the hacker used 8.64 million DAI to buy back 2,109.54 ETH at $4,096 per coin. As a result, the hacker still holds 12,326 ETH, worth about $58.6 million at that time.
Ironically, last week’s sale by the hacker proved to be when the price of ETH was close to its peak, meaning the hacker traded more intelligently than many in the market. If the latest move to buy ETH also pays off, then they would have shown a strong understanding of how the crypto market works.
The Radiant Capital hacker is buying the dip in $ETH!
An hour ago, they spent 8.64M $DAI to buy 2,109.54 $ETH at $4,096.https://t.co/ZKHsX1ToIt pic.twitter.com/AuNMJ3O9so
— Lookonchain (@lookonchain) August 20, 2025
Is a New Trend Brewing?
This case with Radiant Capital is part of a worrying trend of cybercriminals pretending to be legitimate investors and using looted funds to trade in unstable crypto markets. For example, just last week, a hacker stole $49.5 million in USDC from Infini. They changed this money into 17,696 ETH at $2,798 each, then sold 3,540 ETH for $13 million in stablecoins. They then took advantage of a price rise and sold more ETH worth $7.44 million.
In a separate incident, a hacker stole $44 million from Decentralized perpetual exchange GMX, returned $10.49 million, but swapped some of the stolen assets for 11,700 ETH. These cases highlight a worrying trend where hackers use liquid markets like ETH to clean their money and increase their wealth.
The actions of the Radiant Capital hacker show that the crypto world is entering a new phase in crypto crime. Skilled cybercriminals are starting to act like experienced investors and use the open nature of decentralized finance (DeFi) markets to their advantage.
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