Binance said it was able to retrieve around $5.8 million worth of stolen treasure that had made its way into its platform in disguised form, more than a week after the US linked one of the biggest crypto heists to a North Korean hacker gang. The specifics of how it did so should serve as a warning to those attempting to cash out ill-gotten bitcoin gains: it’s only going to grow more difficult.
The loss of more than $600 million in bitcoin from the Ronin software bridge, which is used by players of Axie Infinity to move cryptocurrency, was linked to the North Korean hacker group Lazarus by the US Treasury Department last week. The department discovered an Ethereum wallet address linked to the organization and added it to its list of sanctioned entities. Working with outside organizations, Binance was able to track stolen cash from the hackers’ wallet to Tornado Cash, a service that allows for anonymous token transfers on the Ethereum blockchain, and then to its exchange.
According to Binance’s chief executive officer, Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, the cryptocurrency was identified in 86 separate accounts on the platform. The spokesperson stated “We coordinated with industry-leading blockchain analytics firms and immediately froze the funds when exposure to our platform was identified,”
While the amount recovered is a drop in the bucket compared to the $600 million in cryptocurrencies stolen, the feat raises hopes that more assets may be recovered as hackers continue to move them around. According to blockchain statistics, around 56,200 Ether, or about $170 million in stolen currency, was moved out of the thieves’ main Ethereum address in the last week. All of the stolen funds were transferred to new addresses, with part of the funds being transferred to Tornado Cash.
