The Bybit hack worth 1.4 billion USD continues to shock as on-chain data shows that a large amount of stolen ETH was swapped for BTC via ThorChain. This has made the decentralized platform the center of controversy as it has been accused of facilitating the asset liquidation process.

Suspicious money flow through ThorChain

On February 28, Arkham Intelligence reported that at least 240 million USD from the Bybit hack had been converted from $ETH to $BTC via ThorChain. According to analysis on Dune Analytics, 93% of the deposits on ThorChain since February 21 originated from hacker wallets, indicating an alarming scale of transactions.

As of now, the hacker has swapped over 221,124 ETH (466.2 million USD) to BTC via #THORChain . Previously, this group used multiple platforms such as Asgardex, DeFiSwap, ShapeShift, TrustWallet to cover their tracks. This activity caused the trading volume on ThorChain to reach a record of 737 million USD on February 27.

In addition to ThorChain, eXch was also a primary bridge for the hacker to swap assets. However, when eXch disabled ETH swap transactions, the hacker seemingly redirected to ThorChain, raising concerns about this platform becoming a key link in the asset liquidation case.

ThorChain faces criticism

The incident raised questions within the community about the ability to control the flow of money on ThorChain. Security expert samczsun from #paradigm stated that ThorChain's direct bridge to Bitcoin makes it more susceptible to exploitation compared to other DEX platforms like Uniswap or Curve. Additionally, some validators in the system voted to block suspicious transactions but were unsuccessful due to opposition from other groups.

ThorChain's lead developer, Pluto, announced his withdrawal from the project shortly after the wave of criticism. Another prominent validator, TCB, also stated that they would leave if no measures were taken to prevent the flow of money from the hacker.

TCB emphasized that although ThorChain claims to be decentralized, most of the infrastructure is still controlled by a small group. This poses a significant challenge if the platform faces investigations from authorities.

RUNE price plummets

Immediately following the controversies, the price of RUNE dropped more than 16.2% in 24 hours, to a level of 1.31 USD. Apart from the impact of the incident, the crypto market also experienced a sharp decline after news that the US government imposed additional taxes on China.

Although there has been no official response from the ThorChain team, the crypto community is closely monitoring the next developments to see if this platform will take any measures to limit suspicious transactions in the future. #anhbacong