By
Chimamanda U. Martha
April 25th, 2024
The FTX exploiter has been using blockchain bridges to move stolen funds with minimal noise.
The FTX heist that happened a few hours before Sam Bankman-Fried filed for voluntary chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings continues to baffle investigators worldwide. With nearly 1 million affected by the FTX hack, global regulators and blockchain analytics firms are taking personal initiatives to solve the puzzle. On Monday, PerkShield Inc – a blockchain security and data analytics company – tweeted that the FTX exploiter has transferred 180,000 Eth worth approximately $200 million. Per the on-chain data, the FTX exploiter transferred the stolen funds in batches of 15,000 ETH. While some funds remain blocked by some crypto projects like Tether (USDT), the FTX exploiter is on the precipice of liquidating the majority of the coins.
The FTX exploiter has been using blockchain bridges to move stolen funds with minimal noise. While nearly $200 million are in the Ethereum network, the other half has been distributed across various blockchains to make investigators’ work more cumbersome.
Per a new report by Bloomberg, the FTX implosion could have been negated months before it happened. Reportedly, the FTX exchange was under investigation by federal prosecutors in Manhattan months before the fallout. Nonetheless, FTX and its subsidiaries are well connected in the political class due to Bankman-Fried’s generous donations, amounting to $40 million in 2022.
Will FTX Customers Ever Get Compensated?
According to a new feature from Coingecko, South Korea, Singapore and Japan are the most impacted countries by the FTX fallout. The FTX cryptocurrency exchange had amassed operating licenses from several countries across Europe, Asia, the Americas, and Australia in the past few years.
As such, multiple investigations on the FTX implosion are taking place in various jurisdictions simultaneously. Meanwhile, centralized cryptocurrency exchanges are trying to showcase their astuteness by providing on-chain proof-of-reserve, which was kickstarted by Binance.
Nonetheless, the FTX users have not been provided with assurances of refunds, and are likely to keep waiting for years. Some market strategists argue that it may take decades to recover FTX funds. Moreover, the Mt.Gox case, which is one of the high-profile crypto heists, has never been completed over eight years after the hack.
While fears of more forced liquidations in the crypto market spiral up, crypto prices continue to shrink by the day. According to our latest crypto price oracles, Bitcoin price has dropped approximately 2 percent in the past 24 hours to trade around $15,700 at reporting time.
Ethereum (ETH) price has dropped approximately 3.2 percent in the past 24 hours to trade around $1088 today.
The majority of the current total crypto traded volume is emanating from the stablecoin market. An attribute of high crypto volatility as more traders take refuge.