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FTX was hacked in November 2022, just hours after it declared bankruptcy. Now it was reported that hackers have started moving large amounts of assets they stole from the defunct cryptocurrency exchange.
It was observed that there have been movements related to the stolen digital assets, and these new transactions are being made while FTX founder, Sam Bankman-Fried, is on trial. According to CoinTelegraph, as much as 72,500 Ether are being activated for the first time since the FTX was hacked last year.
Detection of Transfers Involving Stolen FTX Assets
BBC News reported that after lying dormant since November, millions of the stolen stash are being laundered into regular money every day. A closer look into the incident showed how much the still unidentified thieves are trying to conceal any trace of their activities.
In any case, the sudden movements were detected by the Elliptic blockchain analytics firm on Thursday, Oct. 12. The company said the hackers converted about $120 million worth of Ether into Bitcoin, and this was done via the multichain decentralized exchange (DEX), THORSwap.
Elliptic said the activities started on Sept. 30, and the first transactions of crypto conversion were made just a few days before Bankman-Fried was set to go on trial on Oct. 3. The thieves were able to convert assets worth $87 million, which is equivalent to 18% of the total stolen goods of $477 million.
Suspicions of Inside Job
With these occurrences, the analytics company thinks there is a possibility of the multi-million hacking incident being an inside job within FTX. Elliptic explained this suggestion makes sense because there are employees who have access to FTX’s assets.
“The 180,000 ETH that was not converted to Bitcoin through RenBridge remained dormant until the early hours of Sep. 30, 2023 - by which time it was worth $300 million,” the blockchain analytics company stated in a recent report. “Some FTX employees would have had access to the business’s crypto assets in order to move them for operational reasons. In the chaos surrounding the company’s bankruptcy and collapse, it may have been possible for an internal actor to take these assets.”
Photo by: Sergei Tokmakov/Pixabay
