Cryptocurrency exchange Bybit has been the victim of the largest hack in the history of the crypto industry, resulting in the theft of almost $1.5 billion in cryptocurrencies. Analysts suspect that the notorious North Korean hacking group Lazarus is behind the attack, Bloomberg reports.
Bybit CEO Ben Zhou said that hackers managed to access the exchange’s offline Ethereum wallet. According to analyst ZachXBT, about $1.46 billion was withdrawn from the wallet in suspicious transactions.
Research firm Arkham Intelligence confirmed the outflow of funds worth about $1.4 billion and noted that the stolen assets have already begun to be transferred to new wallets and sold. Elliptic, a blockchain analytics firm, recognized the breach as the largest in cryptocurrency history, surpassing the Poly Network breach in 2021 when $611 million was stolen.
“This is probably the largest financial incident in history, not just in the crypto industry,” said Rob Benke, co-founder and chairman of cybersecurity company Halborn.
To reassure customers, Zhou went live on X, assuring users that their funds were safe and withdrawals remained available. Bybit has already secured about 80% of the funds needed to cover the losses through loans from partners. In addition, the exchange is working to recover the stolen assets and plans to take legal action against the hackers.
“Your funds are safe and withdrawals are still open,” Zhou stressed. According to him, the exchange has already processed more than 70% of withdrawal requests since the incident. Zhou also noted that Bybit is not currently buying Ethereum to cover lost assets.
Founded in 2018, Bybit has become one of the largest crypto exchanges in the world, with a daily trading volume of over $36 billion. At the time of the hack, the exchange had around $16.2 billion in assets, meaning the hackers stole around 9% of the total.
According to Nansen, the stolen assets included about $1.12 billion in Ethereum, as well as derivative tokens such as stETH. The hackers initially transferred the assets to one wallet and then distributed them to more than 40 other wallets. The attackers then converted all the derivative tokens to Ethereum and transferred the assets in tranches of $27 million to additional wallets.
Arkham Intelligence and ZachXBT said that the North Korean hacking group Lazarus, which is known for its previous hacks of crypto exchanges, including WazirX and Radiant Capital, is behind the attack.
"These are very experienced hackers, which indicates a high level of organization," said Shahar Madar, vice president of security at Fireblocks, which is assisting Bybit with the investigation.
Following the news of the hack, Ethereum fell by almost 8%, while Bitcoin lost about 5%. Additionally, Ethena Labs’ USDe token temporarily lost its peg to the US dollar, falling to $0.98 before stabilizing.