• The address linked to the theft of $323 million worth of Ethereum (ETH) from Wormhole recently began shuffling assets.
• The hacker transferred the funds onto a decentralized exchange (DEX) and then went on to cycle funds around different DeFi protocols.
• The series of swaps started with the threat attacker address consolidating Ether before swapping 95,630 ETH ($157.2 million) into the staked ether (stETH) through OpenOcean.
A recent activity by the address linked to the theft of $323 million worth of Ethereum (ETH) from Wormhole has caused a stir in the crypto world. The news about the activity on the cross-chain protocol Wormhole was first highlighted by Twitter user @Spreekaway on Monday, January 23. The hacker is believed to have transferred the funds onto a decentralized exchange (DEX) and then gone on to cycle funds around different DeFi protocols.
The series of swaps started as the threat attacker address consolidated Ether before starting off a swap for 95,630 ETH ($157.2 million) into the staked ether (stETH) through OpenOcean, the famous decentralized exchange (DEX) aggregator. The hacker then swapped the stETH for 86,473 wrapped summer (wstETH) and then again for 74,331 DAI (the stablecoin). The hacker then used the DAI to purchase Synthetix Network Tokens (SNX) and an additional 1,000 ETH.
Afterwards, the hacker transferred the ETH, SNX, and wstETH back to the same address, but in different proportions. It is believed that the hacker was using the OpenOcean DEX to gain access to DEXes like Uniswap and Kyber, as well as other protocols to perform the swaps. This was followed by a series of transactions involving the various tokens and leading to the same address.
The theft of Ethereum from Wormhole happened in 2022, marking it one of the biggest thefts of that kind. However, the losses were refunded by the crypto division of trading giant Jump, a leading force behind Wormhole. It is not yet known what the hacker’s intentions were with the funds, but it is possible that they were trying to launder the funds or even use them to fund other activities. Nonetheless, the recent shuffling of funds has raised several questions and speculation in the crypto community.
