Cryptoupdated 58m ago2 min read
Binance Hacker Swaps $95.9M Stolen Solana Into Bitcoin Via Relay Protocol
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Approximately 970,522 SOL ($95.9M) swapped to Bitcoin via Relay Protocol. Earlier, 486,970 SOL ($46.4M) converted to Bitcoin through Relay.
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Solana to Bitcoin swaps
On November 1, a wallet tied to the Binance breach transferred approximately 486,970 SOL, valued at $46.4 million, toward Bitcoin through cross-chain service Relay Protocol, as Lookonchain reported. On November 1, the same activity involved a reported stash of 970,522 SOL, worth approximately $95.9 million, with Lookonchain writing, “The Binance hacker is swapping the stolen 970,522 SOL ($95.9M) for BTC.”
“The Binance hacker is swapping the stolen 970,522 SOL ($95.9M) for BTC.”
AMBCrypto said the market tracked the Binance hacker’s wallet activity as the hacker swapped 970k SOL into BTC via the Relay Protocol, and it added that “Around 486,970 SOL ($46.4 million) has already moved in the past hour.” AMBCrypto also said traders were positioning for more downside, including a whale opening a $23 million SOL short with 20x leverage and a liquidation price of $123.2, while it flagged $90 as a key support level to watch.
FBI attribution and freezes
The FBI attributed the October 29 Binance attack to North Korea’s state-sponsored cyber operation known as TraderTraitor, and it said the theft involved “more than $6 billion in cryptocurrency from the exchange.” The FBI urged THORChain node operators, exchanges and decentralized finance (DeFi) services to block transactions involving identified attacker addresses, and it also published a list of 608 Ethereum addresses, 19 Bitcoin addresses and one Solana address.
Cointelegraph reported that Gate froze two linked accounts as US investigators urged platforms to block transactions tied to the $6.3 billion theft, and it said Gate would cooperate with law enforcement. Chainalysis said most of the hackers’ temporary holding wallets on Tron had been emptied as laundering activity expanded to Solana, and it put the value of the Tron transfers at about $500 million, including repeated movements between wallets.
THORChain outage slows laundering
THORChain suspended cryptocurrency swaps across 10 blockchain networks after an Ethereum transaction error triggered an emergency shutdown, temporarily disrupting transfers linked to the $6.3 billion Binance hack.
Crypto News | Other said the incident began at 11:34 UTC on October 31, when Ethereum underwent a one-block reorganization that removed a recent transaction from its accepted blockchain history, and it described the resulting missing 10 ETH payment.
Chainalysis said the THORChain pause “inadvertently delayed the laundering of a significant amount of funds stolen from Binance,” and it tied the delay to an Ethereum reorg that caused THORChain to incorrectly issue a double refund to someone who had deposited 10 ETH.
The Block reported that THORChain trading remained halted on 10 of its 13 connected chains, including Tron, Ethereum and Bitcoin, as of 1:20 p.m. ET Sunday, while SomaXBT said the attackers had sent 185.1 million TRX and 3.83 million USDT into THORChain in 2,697 deposits.