A researcher at security firm SlowMist has found some of the funds stolen by the attackers behind this year’s $625 million Ronin bridge attack. Ethereum (ETH) to Bitcoin (BTC) reported that they were converted.
Hackers Convert Stolen Ethereum Funds To Bitcoin
In addition, sanctions imposed by the United States to further conceal the identity of the attackers. cryptocurrency It was also stated that they used mixing services.
The attack in March affected the Ronin validator nodes of Sky Mavis, publisher of the popular Axie Infinity game, and the Axie DAO, with the attackers stealing approximately 173,600 ether and 25.5 million USDC.
According to a blog published at the time, the attacker “used hacked private keys to make fake withdrawals” by performing two transactions from the Ronin bridge.
In a “blitezero” tweet from SlowMist, he said that 6,249 ETH converted by the attacker via Tornado Cash were sent to crypto exchange Huobi, where they were exchanged for Bitcoin, while 5,028 Ethereums were sent to FTX on March 28.
About 439 Bitcoins held in Huobi, or $20.5 million at current exchange rates, were then sent to the Bitcoin privacy tool Blender.
Hackers Used the Sanctioned Mixing Service Blender
Blender is a privacy tool that masks user addresses to make transactions more private and was the first BTC mixing service sanctioned by the US government in May.
Blitezero added that many of the Blender addresses sanctioned by the US government are the same deposit addresses used by Ronin hackers.
I’ve been tracking the stolen funds on Ronin Bridge.
I’ve noticed that Ronin hackers have transferred all of their funds to the bitcoin network. Most of the funds have been deposited to mixers(ChipMixer, Blender).This thread🧵 will illustrate the tracking analysis procedures.👇🏻 pic.twitter.com/yrazcJ22xF
— ₿liteZero (@blitezero) August 20, 2022
The attack in question was ultimately associated with the famous North Korean hacker group Lazarus.
However, the researcher added that more than 113,000 ETH sent to Tornado Cash were also converted to renBTC, a token representing BTC on the Ethereum network via decentralized exchanges Uniswap and 1inch.
RenBTC was then transferred from Ethereum to Bitcoin on its network and used to buy spot Bitcoin.
*Not investment advice.
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