Although the FTX hacker lost a sizable chunk of the loot due to hasty decision-making, they still hold $339 million in various crypto.
The mysterious hacker who drained at least $400 million in digital assets from bankrupt exchange FTX reportedly still holds around $339 million of said assets. According to Arkham Intelligence, the wallets associated with the FTX hacker hold $215 million worth of Ether (ETH) and $48 million in Maker’s DAI stablecoin. The exploiter also has $44 million in Binance native token BNB, $4 million in Tether’s USDT stablecoin, and $3.8 million in Polygon’s MATIC.
Arkham Intelligence also tweeted that Paxos received orders from US authorities to blacklist four addresses. The exchange has now frozen $20 million in PAXG, a Paxos stablecoin tied to the price of gold. As a result, the holder could not move the tokens or cash out.
Following the blacklisting yesterday, Arkham Intelligence questioned the next move by the hacker, saying that they “are now 3 days deep into the attack on FTX. So far, Paxos has blacklisted 4 addresses, and the attacker has repeatedly bridged to and from multiple different networks. What will the FTX attacker do next?”
The crypto intelligence platform also further detailed the measures undertaken by the exploiter to move the loot securely. According to Arkham Intelligence, the exploiter acted hastily as evidenced by their behavior on the network. The person used several decentralized exchanges, including Uniswap, 1inch, and CowSwap to convert tokens, and also encountered challenges while trying to dump digital currencies such as MATIC, LINK, and PAXG into smaller accounts. The primary purpose of dividing the funds into smaller versions was to negate losses from slippage.
Arkham Intelligence CEO FTX Hacker Lacks “Sophistication”, Only Matter of Time Before Being Undone
However, Miguel Morel, chief executive of Arkham Intelligence, opined that the hacker lacked finesse in their execution. According to Morel, “it is becoming clearer by the day that the FTX exploiter is not very sophisticated. They’ve hastily tried to do whatever they can with the funds, seemingly without much of a plan”.
Despite efforts to operate undetected, the hacker reportedly lost a substantial amount of their token holdings while moving assets in a state of panic. This development is what Morel believes would eventually lead to the recovery of the funds. According to him, the lack of sophistication in maneuvering the stolen assets raises hope for a possible reclamation. As the Arkham Intelligence CEO put it:
“I think it’s only a matter of time before they’re discovered due to their use of various off-ramps, and at that point it will just be about recovering the funds.”
FTX Turmoil
Last week, FTX filed for bankruptcy upon failure to raise substantial amounts of funds to make up for the deficit incurred by mass customer withdrawals. Late Friday, the Bahamian-based insolvent exchange suffered a hack that saw an outflow of more than $600 million in crypto assets.
The FTX insolvency sent shockwaves across the entire crypto space and led to investigation proceedings by government authorities.
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