BYBIT HACK: 600 MILLIONS $ WASHED
THORChain has not stolen its reputation. With its KYC-free cross-chain exchanges, the protocol embodies the decentralized ideal. Today, it is suffocating under criticism. The Bybit hackers used its liquidity pools to disperse 270,000 ETH. Result: 1 billion $ in 48 hours, and a burning question. Has privacy become public enemy number one?
The protocol has nevertheless tried to react. Three validators voted to block transactions related to Lazarus.
One of the key developers threw in the towel. A symbolic departure, revealing a fracture: can privacy be reconciled with the fight against organized crime?
Founder John-Paul Thorbjornsen dodges the question. "No sanctioned address has interacted with THORChain," he claims. A weak argument in the face of the evidence: the hackers exploited the speed of the protocol, faster than detection tools. THORChain is not guilty, but complicit by naïveté.
The Lazarus group is no longer hiding. With Bybit, Pyongyang signs its biggest hit since the hacking of the South Korean space agency. But the stakes are global. The FBI steps in: "Cut ties with Lazarus!". Mission impossible? Crypto transactions, by nature transnational, defy borders.
The strategy is formidable. By laundering through THORChain, Lazarus proves its mastery of technical and psychological flaws.
Who would suspect an open-source protocol of being used for laundering money from an authoritarian regime? The numbers speak: 605 million $ vanished in seven days. A record that ridicules traditional anti-money laundering "solutions".
The real bomb is elsewhere. TCB, a THORChain validator, threatens to withdraw if the protocol does not block North Korean flows. The FBI demands censorship. Purists scream heresy. In the meantime, the hackers laugh despite the collapse of Bitcoin.
