The WazirX hacker funneled $149M into Ethereum from SHIB, MATIC, and other altcoins

According to blockchain security organizations, unscrupulous actors frequently shift altcoins into Ether to prepare for laundering because the native token has no built-in freezing mechanism.

The hacker responsible for the $235 million attack on cryptocurrency exchange WazirX has changed roughly $150 million in altcoins to Ether, possibly to avoid having money frozen or banned.  According to blockchain analytics firm Spot On Chain, the hacker converted $90.2 million worth of Shiba Inu SHIB $0.000017, $10.2 million in Polygon MATIC $0.5192, and approximately $7.5 million in Pepe (PEPE) to Ether $3,425 between July 18 and 19. The transactions have increased the total amount of stolen funds in Ether to $201 million, up from $52 million initially.

A myriad of reasons to convert to Ether

Spot On Chain told Cointelegraph that the hacker most likely converted the ERC-20 tokens to Ether because it is more liquid and cannot be blacklisted. “Some ERC20 tokens have a contract function to blacklist addresses, while ETH native tokens do not have such a feature.” “Switching to Ether quickly can help the hacker secure their funds before authorities or token issuers take preventative measures,” blockchain security firm PeckShield told Cointelegraph. A textbook example of this is stablecoin issuer Tether, which has blacklisted hundreds of wallets that make questionable transactions with USDT $1.00. Spot On Chain has been added.

Ether is also easier to launder via cryptocurrency exchanges and mixer protocols, and its price is far more steady, according to blockchain security firm Beosin. The hack caused a selloff in SHIB, which has dropped over 7% since the incident, whereas Ether’s price has only lost 0.1%. The hacker still possesses approximately $12 million in Chromia (CHR), Celer Network (CELR), Frontier (FRONT), and Ooki (OOKI) tokens, according to Spot On Chain’s X post.

As a result of the security breach, nearly half of WarzirX’s reserves were wiped out on July 18, according to the June proof-of-reserve report. The funds have been lost due to a force majeure event beyond our control, but we are doing everything in our power to recover them. WazirX posted to X that he had already blocked a few deposits and reached out to concerned wallets for recovery. Blockchain forensics firm Elliptic told Cointelegraph that specific patterns and techniques in the WazirX attack led them to believe North Korean hackers were behind the $235 million hack.

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