Three months after one of the largest crypto heists in history, nearly $644 million of the $1.4 billion stolen from Bybit has vanished from traceable blockchain records, according to new data.
Blockchain analysis shows that about 49.5% of the funds remain traceable, while only 4.5% ($63 million) has been frozen by exchanges and law enforcement. The majority of the stolen funds have been processed through sophisticated cryptocurrency mixing services designed to obscure transaction trails.
The largest portion — $247.5 million in Bitcoin (966 BTC) — was funneled through Wasabi Wallet, a privacy-focused tool. Another $94.1 million was laundered through eXch, a mixing service that falsely claimed to shut down in April, but continues to operate via private back-end APIs, according to TRM Labs. The bybit hacks however keep getting out of hand.
Other privacy tools used include:
- Tornado Cash: $2.5M in ETH
- Railgun: $1.7M in ETH
These services obscure transactions by pooling user funds, making it nearly impossible to trace where the crypto ends up.
The attack’s origin was equally concerning. A report by Safe Wallet revealed that the North Korean hacker group TraderTraitor gained access to Bybit funds by compromising a developer’s laptop. Disguised as a stock trading simulator, a malicious Docker project led to the installation of malware, which stole AWS session tokens and bypassed multi-factor authentication.
Despite initial containment efforts, the incident reveals critical vulnerabilities in Web3 security hygiene, and highlights the ongoing challenges of crypto asset recovery once funds enter opaque mixing systems.
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