[Alpha Biz= Kim Jisun] One of the world's largest cryptocurrency exchanges has suffered a massive hack worth approximately $1.46 billion, marking the worst crypto theft in history. North Korean hacking groups are suspected to be behind the attack.
According to Bloomberg on Friday (local time), cryptocurrency exchange Bybit was hacked, resulting in the theft of digital assets worth $1.46 billion. Bybit CEO Ben Zhou confirmed on X that "a hacker managed to compromise one of Bybit’s offline Ethereum wallets."
Blockchain analyst ZachXBT reported that funds were siphoned off through suspicious transactions. Arkham Intelligence, a blockchain tracking platform, also confirmed that $1.4 billion had been stolen and was being transferred to new addresses for liquidation.
This attack surpasses previous major crypto hacks, including the 2014 Mt. Gox incident ($470 million) and the 2021 Poly Network breach ($611 million), making it the largest crypto theft in history.
Founded in 2018, Bybit is one of the largest global crypto exchanges, with an average daily trading volume exceeding $36 billion. Once ranked as the world’s second-largest exchange by trading volume, Bybit, headquartered in Dubai, held $16.2 billion in assets before the hack. The stolen Ethereum accounts for 9% of the platform’s total assets.
According to blockchain analytics firm Nansen, the stolen funds consisted of Ethereum and Ethereum-based derivatives. The hacker initially moved the assets to a single wallet before distributing them across more than 40 wallets. The derivatives were then converted into Ethereum and further split into over ten additional wallets, each holding approximately $27 million.
Arkham Intelligence stated that ZachXBT provided evidence linking the attack to North Korea’s notorious Lazarus Group.
North Korean hackers have previously been linked to major crypto heists, including the $234.9 million breach of WazirX and the $50 million attack on Radiant Capital. North Korea is suspected of using stolen cryptocurrency to launder funds and finance its nuclear weapons program through a series of cyberattacks on crypto exchanges in recent years.
알파경제 Kim Jisun (stockmk2020@alphabiz.co.kr)
