FTX’s infamous hacker is on Ethereum dumping spree. Reports by Chainalysis found that funds that were stolen from the bankrupt exchange were bridged from ETH to BTC, likely to be mixed prior to a cash-out attempt.
Ethereum [ETH] was caught in the middle of chaos following the collapse of the FTX exchange and the hacking incident that saw over $600 million worth of assets stolen from the exchange.
On Nov 11, the FTX hacker took away millions of dollars worth of ETH tokens by converting all of the other stolen assets, including stablecoins, to ETH. The move made the exploiter the largest Ethereum whale holding nearly $300 million worth.
Soon, there was widespread speculation that the swindler might attempt to cash out all the ETH at once, which could trigger a major price crash of Ethereum. Popular crypto analyst Dylan LeClair reported:
The FTX exploiter, who has been dumping all other drained assets for ETH, is now one of the largest holders in the world, with 228,523 ETH [$284.82m] currently in their wallet. Everyone should keep an extremely close eye on what happens next…
But according to the CEO of Hacken, a cybersecurity auditor, the hacker made a fatal error by sending some of the stolen money in Tether [USDT] on the Tron blockchain using his verified personal account on the cryptocurrency exchange Kraken.
This was corroborated by Kraken, which claimed to have already located the individual and blacklisted some of the assets after doing so. “We know the identity of the user,” Kraken CSO Nick Percoco stated on 18 Nov.
After Ethereum Dump, Exchanges Should Be On High Alert
FTX U.S. subsidiary general counsel Ryne Miller confirmed that FTX US and FTX.com had moved all of their digital assets to cold storage, following the attack.
While the legal proceedings are currently underway, it seems to have little effect as the unknown attacker is still moving funds from the exchange.
“Funds stolen from FTX are on the move and exchanges should be on high alert to freeze them if the hacker attempts to cash out”, Chainalysis warned.
There were also multiple rumors of the exploiter being the Bahamas authorities that were quickly debunked by Chainalysis.
“Reports that the funds stolen from FTX were actually sent to the Securities Commission of The Bahamas are incorrect. Some funds were stolen, and other funds were sent to the regulators.”