Blockchain sleuth PeckShield has published an X post, sharing that it has spotted another chunk of cryptocurrency stolen from the beleaguered just recently.
This time, the FTX hacker made a transaction that involved approximately 288.8 bitcoin, worth nearly $10 million.
Here’s how much crypto was stolen from FTX in total
The FTX crypto trading giant collapsed in the early days of November almost a year ago, and then the mysterious hacker took advantage of it, stealing around $500 million in cryptocurrency. He then exchanged almost all of the stolen crypto into ETH, receiving 180,000 Ethereum. These ETH coins were then withdrawn to 12 different addresses. At that moment, this amount of ETH was valued at nearly $200,000,000 in fiat.
Immediately after that, the hacker became the largest holder of the second most popular cryptocurrency. Later in November, the exploiter moved 50,000 ETH to another wallet and then converted it to Ren Bitcoin (RenBTC), an Ethereum-based version of bitcoin.
Attempts to exchange stolen ETH this year
As reported by U.Today, in early October, the FTX exploiter attempted to exchange it for tBTC via the ThorSwap DeFi platform. When this attempt was discovered, the platform opted to suspend operations and go into maintenance mode rather than allow the hacker to exchange the stolen funds.
The cybercriminal then turned to another chain – Threshold Network – and cross-chained ETH into the Bitcoin network. At this point, the hacker still had about 110,000 ETH, which was worth $180,000,000 at the time.
After ThorSwap was suspended, Bitcoin maximalist Max Keiser took the opportunity to bash DeFi as “heavily centralized” in contrast to BTC.
171,800 ETH sent to major US exchanges
In another turn of events, crypto tracker Whale Alert published data showing that crypto traders have been actively selling large amounts of Ethereum. Earlier today, four more or less consecutive transactions involving 21,852 ETH and three transfers of 50,000 ETH each were made to such leading U.S.-based crypto exchanges as Coinbase (NASDAQ:COIN) (one) and Kraken (the three chunks of 50,000 each).
After a remarkable growth of 18.14% within a week (between October 20 and October 26), Ethereum reached a local high of $1,848 (following the flagship crypto bitcoin, which surpassed the $34,000 level). Ethereum’s surge was followed by a meager 2.84% decline last week.
Nevertheless, the second largest cryptocurrency continues to hold the $1,800 level at the time of writing.