More than two months after the $1.4 billion security breach that rocked Bybit, the firm’s CEO Ben Zhou has offered new insights into the recovery efforts—revealing that nearly 69% of the stolen assets remain traceable . In a detailed executive summary shared on X, Zhou outlined how North Korea’s notorious Lazarus Group executed the largest known crypto exchange heist to date. While much of the stolen cryptocurrency has been cleverly funneled through privacy-enhancing tools, Bybit’s internal investigations suggest a majority of the funds can still be followed across the blockchain. According to Zhou, 68.6% of the hacked funds are traceable, while 27.6% have “gone dark”—a phrase often used to describe assets that vanish into anonymity services—and only 3.8% have been successfully frozen. Lazarus operatives reportedly exploited Bybit’s cold wallet infrastructure in February, breaching a layer of protection previously considered impenetrable. The Laundering Path The investigation reveals that a bulk of the funds first passed through Wasabi Wallet, a privacy-focused Bitcoin mixer. A total of 944 BTC—worth nearly $90 million—was obfuscated through this tool, followed by smaller amounts laundered via CryptoMixer, Tornado Cash, and Railgun. These privacy mixers are designed to make tracing ownership incredibly difficult, often scattering assets across thousands of wallets. Zhou further noted that hackers moved funds across chains using protocols like THORChain, Stargate, SunSwap, and LI.FI. Over 432,000 ETH, estimated at $1.21 billion, was shifted from Ethereum to Bitcoin—eventually being converted into 10,003 BTC and spread out across more than 35,000 wallets. Despite these obfuscation attempts, around $17 million in ETH still sits across 12,490 wallets on Ethereum. Bybit Bounty Hunters Step Up In response to the hack, Bybit launched the Lazarus Bounty program in February, pledging $140 million in rewards for actionable intel. However, of the 5,443 bounty reports submitted in the last 60 days, only 70 were considered legitimate. So far, $2.3 million has been paid out, with $42 million in funds frozen thanks to the Mantle layer-2 team’s efforts. Zhou closed his update with a call to arms: “We need more bounty hunters who can decode mixers. The road ahead demands collaboration.” The hunt continues as the crypto world watches how this cyber whodunit unfolds. The post Bybit CEO Reveals Over Two-Thirds of $1.4B Hack Still Traceable appeared first on TheCoinrise.com .
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