Hackers continue laundering 7,000 Bitcoin from the Binance hack 🚨 This article is 5 years old...
Hackers continue laundering 7,000 Bitcoin from the Binance hack
2 min read
Updated: Apr. 30, 2020 at 12:40 am UTC
Cover art/illustration via CryptoSlate. Image includes combined content which may include AI-generated content.
The hackers who stole 7,000 BTC from Binance continue to layer funds in an attempt to launder and obfuscate the Bitcoin’s connection to the hack. Read the latest report on the movement of these coins from analytics firm Coinfirm.
In May, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange experienced its first major security breach, with hackers making away with 7,000 Bitcoin, now valued at over $82 million. Binance fully covered losses from the hack through its “SAFU” fund.
Following the hack, major exchanges reacted by blacklisting the stolen funds. Coinbase, Poloniex, Kraken, and Huobi would freeze the funds should hackers directly deposit them into accounts on the exchanges. To circumvent these controls, the hackers have continued to move the funds in an elaborate chain of transactions to obfuscate their connection to the hack.
Grant Blaisdell—the co-founder and CMO of Coinfirm, a blockchain analytics firm that provides services for anti-money laundering (AML) and know your customer (KYC) compliance—provided the following information on the movement of the funds directly to CryptoSlate:
Small amounts of BTC were sent to six exchanges in the following amounts, likely to test whether they would be detected and frozen:
- Kraken: 5.9851 BTC
- Huobi: 0.1259 BTC
- BitX.co (Luno): 0.2987 BTC
- BTC-Alpha: 0.0439 BTC
- CoinGate: 0.0089 BTC
- BitPay: 0.0009 BTC
CryptoSlate reached out to the exchanges that received these illicit deposits for comment and has yet to receive responses.
However, the largest recipient of funds has been ChipMixer, a Bitcoin tumbler that mixes hundreds of transactions together to conceal the origin of funds. At least 6.4634 BTC, worth approximately $76,000 at time of publication, was sent to mixer addresses.
Given that many smaller exchanges are in unregulated jurisdictions, it seems unlikely that these funds will have trouble making their way to fiat and other difficult to trace cryptocurrencies such as Monero and Zcash.
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Bitcoin
$97,991.36
Bitcoin, a decentralized currency that defies the sway of central banks or administrators, transacts electronically, circumventing intermediaries via a peer-to-peer network.
Binance
Binance is a global cryptocurrency exchange that provides a platform for trading more than 100 cryptocurrencies.
Kraken
Kraken is a San Francisco-based digital asset exchange in euro volume and liquidity that trades various currencies, including Canadian dollars, US dollars, British pounds, and Japanese yen.
HTX
Huobi, a virtual asset exchange, launched a revised branding strategy on September 13, 2023, where “Huobi” will be rebranded as “HTX.” “H” stands for Huobi, “T” represents TRON with a commitment to being all in TRON, and “X” stands for the exchange.
Coinfirm
Coinfirm’s mission is to provide technology for regulatory compliance, bringing new levels of transparency and trust to the world of digital currencies.
Grant has been creating ventures at the intersection of new technologies and media in the US and Central Europe since his late teens.
