In summary
- Hackers from Cryptocurrency exchange WazirX have almost completed their efforts to launder the $230 million haul through coin mixer Tornado Cash.
- Hackers have moved 15,000 ETH (nearly $40 million) since Monday night across dozens of transactions.
- The Singapore High Court granted a four-month moratorium period to WazirX to restructure its liabilities following the mid-summer hack.
Hackers from cryptocurrency exchange WazirX have nearly completed their efforts to launder the $230 million haul through coin mixer Tornado Cash, complicating efforts to recover funds for affected users.
Hackers have moved 15,000 ETH (almost $40 million today) since Monday night across dozens of transactions. The development followed the Singapore High Court granting a four-month moratorium period to Indian cryptocurrency exchange WazirX to restructure its liabilities following the mid-summer hack of more than $230 million.
Last week, the wallet containing the funds sent around $33 million in Ethereum to Tornado Cash. Since then, the wallet has continued to move funds to other wallets, in many cases sending the coins through Tornado Cash, making them harder to trace.
Data from Arkham Intelligence shows that the hacker’s main wallet still has more than $6 million in various crypto assets, primarily Ethereum, according to on-chain data from Etherscan. The entity behind the hack moved around $57 million in assets over the last seven days.
The data shows that known WazirX exploiter addresses have quickly dispersed funds to addresses that are not tracked by Blockchain analytics platform Arkham Intelligence. This includes a total of 26 transactions listed to Tornado Cash addresses.
Tornado Cash is a decentralized cryptocurrency mixer that uses smart contracts to mix cryptocurrencies, making it virtually impossible to trace funds back to their original origin. It was sanctioned by the United States Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control in 2022, making it illegal to use in the country.
However, authorities have no tools, much less legal jurisdiction, to allow them to stop the operations of a decentralized system, and the notorious mixer had handled almost $2 billion in 2024 as of July.
The WazirX hack targeted a multi-signature wallet, resulting in the loss of $97 million in the meme cryptocurrency Shiba Inu (SHIB) and $53 million in Ethereum, with other stolen assets bringing the total figure to $230 million. These stolen funds represent more than 45% of WazirX’s total reserves. The platform has begun a restructuring process to address its responsibilities.
WazirX founder Nischal Shetty attributed the gap to various parties during this period. Initially, he blamed custodian Liminal for the security breach, which Liminal denied. In August, Shetty alleged that Binance held the majority of funds from Zettai Labs, WazirX’s parent company, limiting its ability to compensate affected customers. Binance refuted these claims shortly after.
Some analysts believe that North Korean-sponsored actors, such as the Lazarus Group, carried out the theft.
Jeremiah O’Connor, CTO and co-founder of crypto cybersecurity firm Trugard and former senior research scientist at Binance and Coinbase, told Decrypt that “while significant progress has been made in unmixing transactions, the recovery of stolen funds continues.” being exceptionally challenging, especially when dealing with groups like Lazarus.”
Groups like Lazarus “leverage networks of foreign operators and employ state-backed protection to facilitate the movement of funds, greatly reducing the likelihood of successful asset recovery,” he added.
Anoop Nannra, CEO of Trugard, added that “investigators will have a challenging time trying to decipher which of the receiving wallets are actually part of the hack and which are simply innocent bystanders.”
Meanwhile, with legal proceedings stalled, Indian users have limited options to recover their losses.
“I personally know one victim who is both a WazirX customer and investor,” Nannra said, “and he is slowly coming to the conclusion that he will never see his funds.”
Edited by Andrew Hayward and Josh Quittner
Daily Debrief Newsletter
Start every day with the top news stories right now, plus original features, a podcast, videos and more.
For the Latest Crypto News, Follow ©KeynoteUSA on Twitter Or Google News.
Disclaimer: Please note that the information provided on this page is for News purposes only and should not be considered investment or trading advice. ©Crypto.keynoteusa.com strongly recommends that you conduct independent research and/or consult with a qualified professional before making any investment decisions.
