- Bybit received $600M ETH deposits from Mirana Ventures after the $1.5B ETH hack.
- The firm acquired this ETH by selling $500M BTC and $100M USDT through trading platforms.
- Bybit confirmed it had recovered all the lost ETH, and the withdrawals are back to normalcy.
According to Arkham Intel, Bybit has now received $600M in Ethereum deposits from Mirana Ventures after suffering a historic hack of about $1.5B of Ethereum ($ETH) and staked Ethereum ($stETH). The firm acquired all this ETH by selling $500M BTC and $100M USDT through prominent trading companies like FalconX, Galaxy Digital, and Wintermute OTC. This action makes Mirana the largest ETH depositor after the hack. It is worth noting that Mirana’s capital providers are the co-founders of Bybit.
On February 24, CEO Ben Zhou confirmed that the platform fully recovered from the ETH loss. He added that the company will soon publish an audited Proof-of-Reserves (POR) report demonstrating 1:1 backing of client assets through Merkle tree verification.
To mitigate the losses, Bybit purchased $437.83 million in ETH (157,660 ETH) from crypto-trading platforms such as Galaxy Digital, FalconX, and Wintermute through over-the-counter (OTC) transactions. Additionally, Bybit purchased $304.12 million in ETH (109,033 ETH) from decentralized and centralized exchanges. This totals $742 million in ETH purchases, bringing the coin’s price up by 6% from its drop. The move aims to restore reserves and ease the financial loss.
According to a Lookonchain analysis, Bybit received $1.23 billion in ETH (446,870 ETH) from various sources, such as loans, large investor deposits, and direct ETH purchases, which amounts to almost 87% of the total funds stolen.
Related: ETH Struggles Post-Bybit Hack, Risks Falling Below $2,400
North Korean Lazarus Group
Arkham Intelligence investigated the Bybit hack, with analyst ZachXBT citing the North Korean Lazarus Group as the perpetrator. The attackers targeted a cold-to-warm wallet transaction, manipulated the smart contract logic, and sent $1.5B in ETH and $stETH to unknown addresses. In a recent post, Arkham reported that the hackers had bridged at least $6.2M of the stolen ETH to BTC through Thorchain. They are also swapping ETH to DAI using OKX Web3 Swap.
With the help of loans, ETH purchases, and whale deposits, Bybit has managed to mitigate its loss and restore its reserves. The series of actions taken by Ben Zhou has gained appreciation from the crypto community and helped rebuild user confidence and stabilize the platform without any disruptions.
