The ill-gotten cryptocurrency from one of the biggest exploits in the industry is back in action, with network data showing that another $46 million in stolen funds just moved from the hacker’s wallet.
The wormhole attack was the third largest cryptocurrency hack in 2022 as a result of the use of the wormhole token bridge in February 2022. Approximately $321 million in wrapped ETH (wETH) was stolen.
According to blockchain security company PeckShield, the wallet associated with the hacker became active again, moving $46 million worth of crypto assets.
It consisted of about 24,400 Ethereum (wstETH) staking tokens (wstETH) staking tokens in Lido Finance, worth about $41.4 million, and 3,000 Ethereum (rETH) Rocket Pool staking tokens, worth about $5 million, which were moved to MakerDAO.
According to PeckShield, the hacker appears to be looking for opportunities to profit or arbitrage his stolen loot, as the assets were exchanged for 16.6 million DAI.
The MakerDAO stablecoin was then used to buy 9,750 ETH at around $1,537 and 1,000 stETH. They were then wrapped back into 9,700 wstETH.
#PeckShieldAlert Wormhole Network Exploiter 0x629e provided $46 million worth of cryptocurrencies, including $24.4 thousand. $wstETH (41.4 million dollars) and 3 thousand. $rETH (~$5M), at MakerDAO for $16.6M. $DAI and used them to buy 9.75 thousand $ETH ($ETH at $1537) and 1k. $stETH ($ETH at $1543) and then wrapped it up for ~9.7k. $wstETH pic.twitter.com/BRfygHgpit
— PeckShieldAlert (@PeckShieldAlert) February 12, 2023
Feb 10 Online Sleuth observable that the hacker “bought to fall.”
However, the price of Ether (ETH) has since fallen below these levels over the past few hours. ETH is down 2.6% on the day to $1,505, according to CoinGecko.
At the time of the handover, stETH prices were down compared to Ethereum and rose to $1,570. At the time of writing, they are trading 2.4% higher than ETH at $1,541. In addition, the wstETH peg also declined and rose to $1,676, which is 11.3% higher than the underlying asset.
Losses from crypto exploitation in January fell by almost 93% year on year
The latest movement of funds comes just weeks after a hacker transferred another $155 million in Ethereum to the decentralized exchange.
On January 24, 95,630 ETH was sent to the OpenOcean DEX exchange and then converted into ETH-pegged assets, including stETH and wstETH Lido.
Credit : cointelegraph.com
