5 months ago
15
- Bybit suffered the largest crypto hack ever, losing $1.4 billion in ETH and stETH.
- Over $76 million in ETH futures were liquidated, as panic selling hit the market.
- Hackers split the stolen funds across 39 wallets, while Arkham launched a $50,000 bounty to track them down.
The crypto world is in shock as Bybit just suffered the biggest hack in industry history, with $1.4 billion in ETH and staked ETH (stETH) siphoned from its wallets. The attack has already sent Ethereum futures traders scrambling, triggering a wave of liquidations totaling $76 million in just four hours.
JUST IN: Ethereum $ETH short positions are SURGING following the Bybit hack
A 4x disparity now exists between longs and shorts
Over $1 billion in shorts would be liquidated if price returns to where it was 5 hours ago (pre Bybit) pic.twitter.com/bYpHT49sUo
Mass Liquidations, ETH & BTC Prices Drop
The aftermath? A brutal sell-off.
- 183,176 traders liquidated in 24 hours
- Total liquidations hit $499.23 million across the market
- ETH dropped 3% to $2,727, while Bitcoin slid 1% to $98,091
Bybit co-founder and CEO Ben Zhou confirmed the hack, explaining that a routine wallet transfer was manipulated—allowing attackers to gain control of the exchange’s ETH cold wallet.
“The hacker took control of the specific ETH cold wallet we signed and transferred all ETH in the cold wallet to an unidentified address,” Zhou said, adding that Bybit remains solvent despite the loss.
Hackers Splitting Stolen ETH Across 39 Wallets
Blockchain security analyst ZachXBT was among the first to spot suspicious outflows, later confirming Bybit had been compromised.
The hackers are now splitting the stolen ETH across 39 wallets, likely in an attempt to obscure transactions and evade tracking.
Meanwhile, on-chain intelligence firm Arkham has put a bounty on the attacker’s identity, offering 50,000 ARKM tokens to anyone who provides useful intel.
“We’ve created & funded a bounty to help identify the person or organization behind today’s >$1B Bybit hack,” Arkham posted on X.
The Biggest Crypto Hacks in History—Bybit Tops the List
Bybit’s $1.4 billion exploit is now the largest crypto exchange hack ever, surpassing even some of the most infamous breaches in history:
- March 2022: Axie Infinity’s Ronin Network lost $625M due to a validator exploit.
- August 2022: Poly Network suffered a $611M hack, though most funds were later returned.
- 2014: Mt. Gox collapsed after losing 850,000 BTC, worth $460M at the time.
With crypto security threats escalating, the question remains—who’s next?
English (US) ·