Binance Hackers Are Juggling the Stolen Bitcoin Between Multiple Wallets
Hackers who stole $40 million worth of bitcoin from Binance hot wallet are now juggling the stolen proceeds across multiple wallets by breaking them into smaller fragments, suggested a report from blockchain service company Coinfirm, May 08, 2019.
Erasing the Trace of Stolen Bitcoins
The disarray surrounding the year’s fourth major cryptocurrency exchange hack is anything but settled. Hackers on May 07, 2019, were able to conduct a security breach and transfer 7000 BTC from the hot wallet of one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges Binance.
Following the hack, the blockchain service company Coinfirm has been closely speculating the movement of the stolen bitcoin. On May 8, Coinfirm tweeted that 1214 BTC ($7.16 million) were moved to a new address while the remaining amount sat in the original address to which the coins were first transferred.
Almost three hours later, Coinfirm again tweeted that another 1227 BTC were transferred to two different addresses. One of the wallets received 707 BTC while the other was credited with 520 BTC.
Another company named Crystal that provides investigative tools for blockchain tweeted a representation of all the fund transfers made by the hackers.
As per today's reports, hackers accessed @Binance #crypto exchange on May 7 & withdrew 7000 #BTC in one transaction. See Crystal analytics’ visualization of the transaction below. Explore more & apply for trial access here: https://t.co/1bfrfQStJv@cz_binance pic.twitter.com/YabctIu9CZ
— Crystal Blockchain (@CrystalPlatform) May 8, 2019
These transactions are purportedly being done in order to deceive the authorities and prevent them from being able to keep a track of the overall fund.
Hurt but Not Broke
Binance hack was followed by a community outroar. Jeremy Rubin, who has worked on bitcoin and Stellar’s core code, suggested a re-org. It would mean that they brought more than 50% of the bitcoin miners together to change and validate the transaction data to transfer back the funds from the hacker’s wallets. However, after consulting with other reputed members of the crypto community, the CEO of Binance Changpeng Zhao decided not to go with the plan.
He stated:
To put this to bed, it’s not possible, bitcoin ledger is the most immutable ledger on the planet. Done.
Justin Sun, founder and CEO of Tron, extended a helping hand and tweeted that he would donate 7000 BTC worth of USDT by buying BNB, BTC, TRX and BTT. However, Zhao politely denied saying that they were hurt, but not broke. Zhao further announced that the lost funds would be recovered from the Secure Asset Fund for Users (SAFU).
