Market Crashes After Bybit Faces $1.5 Billion ETH Hack
The cryptocurrency market has experienced a major recession after the famous cryptocurrency exchange Bybit announced a devastating hack involving $1.5 billion worth of cryptocurrency. The incident marks the largest cryptocurrency hack to date. Recent updates (including CEO’s statement) confirm that BYBIT has been compromised, resulting in Ethereum losing about $1.5 billion.
Bybitt faces the biggest hacker in history
Singapore’s centralized crypto exchange Bybit appears to have been hacked. Early estimates suggest that despite the ongoing investigation, the exchange lost more than $1.46 billion worth of ETH.
The CEO described a hacker attack on Bybit’s Ethereum Multisig Cold Wallet, where the attacker manipulated the signature interface to trick the signer into approving changes in the wallet’s smart contract logic, allowing all ETH theft in the wallet.
CEO Ben Zhou explain“About 1 hour ago, Bybit Eth Multisig Cold Wallet just moved to our warm wallet. It seems this particular deal was circulated and all signers saw Musk’s UI, which showed the correct address, and the URL From security. However, signature messages are a smart contract logic that changes our ETH cold wallet. This leads to hackers taking control of the specific ETH cold wallet we sign in the cold wallet and transferring all ETH to this unidentified address. Rest assured , all other cold wallets are secure. All withdrawals are normal. If any team can help us track stolen funds, I will notify you in time as more progresses.”
On Tuesday, the exchange announced that it would conduct scheduled maintenance on its live servers, extending from today to tomorrow. Zachxbt first reported the hack, noting that methamphetamine and Stees are actively exchanging Ethereum for Decentralized Exchanges (DEXs) according to chain data.
Attackers have moved thousands of Ethereum to 48 different addresses. Zachxbt calls for communication and services to blacklist these addresses to prevent further movement of stolen funds.
Ethereum prices face sharp drop
The funds were first sent to an address at the price of 0x476, which totaled over $1.1 billion, including 400,000 ETH, 90,000 ETH, STETH, 15,000 CMETH and 8,000 CETH. Most are then transferred to the second address 0xA4B2F, where they are exchanged on decentralized platforms such as UnisWap, ParasWap and KybersWap.
After the attack, Ethereum’s price dropped sharply. CoinMarketCap reported a 5% drop in ETH, as low as around $2,680. Meanwhile, Bybit’s CEO assured that customers affected by the hacker will be repaid for the lost funds.
“Bybit hot wallet, warm wallet and all other cold wallets are good. The only cold wallet that has been hacked is Eth Cold Wallet. All withdrawals are normal,” he said.
He also said: “Even if this hacker loss is not recovered, all customers’ assets are 1 to 1 and we can bear the losses.”
Unfortunately, the incident is the largest cryptocurrency hack in history, surpassing previous records from the Ronin Network, where $625 million was stolen.
