Hackers who looted $1.4 billion in Ethereum from Bybit are getting away with it. After pulling off one of crypto’s biggest heists in February 2025, these thieves are proving remarkably good at making money vanish. A whopping $400 million has already gone dark – completely untraceable. Funny how that works.
The culprits, linked to North Korea’s notorious Lazarus Group, aren’t exactly being subtle about their methods. They’re running stolen funds through Wasabi Mixer like it’s a crypto laundromat, washing roughly $90 million worth of Bitcoin through the platform. And that’s just the beginning of their laundering spree.
These hackers clearly took notes in “Crime 101.” After Wasabi, they split the funds between CryptoMixer, Tornado Cash, and Railgun – because apparently one mixer isn’t enough these days. They’re also playing blockchain hopscotch, using Thorchain to swap hundreds of Bitcoin for Ethereum and jumping between chains via bridges like eXch, Lombard, and LiFi.
The numbers tell a grim story. While Bybit can still trace 68.57% of the stolen funds, that’s cold comfort when $400 million has vanished into thin air. Even worse, the untraceable portion jumped from 7.59% in March to 27.6% in April. Quick math: that’s a 20% increase in just one month. Not great.
Bybit CEO Ben Zhou is practically begging for help on social media, while blockchain security firm Bitrace confirms the hackers are dumping funds through OTC channels faster than you can say “cryptocurrency.” The final destination? Good old-fashioned cash, presumably stuffed in some very large mattresses somewhere in North Korea. The company has already paid out $2.3 million in bounties to successful claims for tracking the stolen assets.
The thieves are using every trick in the book – P2P exchanges, OTC platforms, multiple mixers, and cross-chain transfers. It’s like watching a master class in crypto crime, except nobody signed up for this lesson.
Meanwhile, Bybit’s stolen billions are slowly but surely slipping through their fingers, one mixed transaction at a time.
