Fortuin of crypto coins stolen during ‘largest digital robbery ever’: “Your money is safe”

A hacker gave himself access to an offline wallet from Bybit with Ether, the coin of the Ethereum Cryptoplatform. That made the CEO of the Crypto Fair, Ben Zhou, announced on Friday on Social Network site X.

According to the blockchain analyst Zachxbt, a total of 1.46 billion in virtual coins from the electronic wallet disappeared in a series of suspicious transactions, he said on message service Telegram. Blockchain is the digital register in which crypto transactions can be consulted.

Cryptomarkt Arkham Intelligence confirmed that an amount of around 1.4 billion dollars would have been removed from Bybit. “The funds have moved to new blockchain addresses, from which they are being sold,” said it on X.

It is about the greatest theft of crypto coins ever, according to blockchain analysis company Elliptic. The previous biggest loot was around 611 million dollars that was stolen from Poly Network in 2021, it sounds.

“Your money is safe”

Zhou tried to remove the concern of customers in a live stream on X. He emphasized that Bybit has taken out bridging loans with partners and has already insured himself of about 80 percent of the lost amount in financing. “Your money is safe and recordings (Van crypto coins, ed.) are possible, “it was said. According to Zhou, Bybit tries to recover the stolen ether and will take legal steps against the hackers.

The Bybit founded in 2018, with headquarters in Dubai, is one of the largest cryptom markets in the world: it processes a daily trade volume of more than 36 billion dollars. For the hacking there was roughly 16.2 billion dollars of crypto coins on the stock exchange.

The price of Crypto currency Ethereum fell by almost 4% after the news about the hack on Friday, but has since almost returned to the old level.

Although the identity of the Bybit striker is unknown, some reports suggest that the perpetrators could be North Korean state hackers, such as the Lazarus Group, who are responsible for earlier large-scale robberies, including the theft of 615 million dollars of the Ronin Group blockchain project in 2022.