FTX hacker is now the 35th largest holder of ETHEREUM (ETH)

Hackers who exploited the now-bankrupt FTX exchange last week have made a tidy fortune, propelling them to Ether

An Elliptic report found that FTX exchange wallets were drained of $663 million in various crypto assets just one day after it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. In total, Elliptic suspected $477 million of this was stolen, of which a large portion was converted to ETH. FTX itself is believed to have moved $186 million worth of tokens into secure storage.

The attacker has conducted multiple cross-chain transactions and swaps over the past day, according to blockchain security firm Beosin. As of November 15, he holds approximately $338 million in crypto assets. FTX Accounts Drainer is now the 35th largest Ethereum holder, based on the number of ETH held.

The Beacon Chain deposit contract has around 15 million ETH as its top holder. Furthermore, most of those in the top 20 belong to crypto exchanges, layer-2 protocols, and Decentralized Finance (DeFi). Over 27.7% of the entire circulating supply of ETH is held by the top 20 ETH wallets, and over a third of it is held by the top 50 wallets.

There were exploits on both FTX and FTX.US, which led many to speculate that it might have been a hostile takeover. Hugh Brooks, director of security operations at analytics firm Certik, hinted at such evidence. On November 15, he stated that an insider with access to these wallets moving the funds cannot be ruled out unless there was a private key compromise. 

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