As the Lazarus Group, widely believed to be behind the recent $1.4 billion hack of Bybit, attempts to launder the stolen proceeds, non-KYC centralized exchange eXch is denying accusations that its service is being used to "mix" the funds.
"We are not laundering money for Lazarus/DPRK," eXch wrote in a post on the forum Bitcointalk, using the abbreviation for the North Korean government, believed to be the state sponsor of the Lazarus group. "[T]he opposite opinion is solely a perspective of some people that wish decentralized coins' fungibility and on-chain privacy to vanish...long-time haters of decentralized crypto in general."
Several blockchain analysts noted transfers of ETH from wallets associated with the Bybit hack to the eXch exchange. "By my estimate, eXch did about $30M of volume for DPRK today," wrote Nick Bax, a member of the Security Alliance, or SEAL, group in a post on X. "Curious to see how long they can keep this up."
"Exch[.]cx, a no-KYC exchange, has recorded an abnormal spike in ETH volume—20K ETH in the past 24 hours versus its usual 800 ETH," noted analyst Vxdb. "Their Bitcoin reserves are also empty, but their ETH reserves have increased by 900%."
"Given the significant amount of ETH already laundered through eXch into BTC, XMR, etc., platforms should tighten risk controls on any funds coming from there," blockchain security firm SlowMist's MistTrack account recommended.
The eXch team admits, in a post on the forum, that an "insignificant portion of funds from the ByBit hack eventually entered our address" but calls the transfer "an isolated case and the only part processed by our exchange." Later, the eXch team promised to donate the proceeds from the funds to "various open-source initiatives dedicated to privacy and security both inside and outside crypto space."
In another post, the eXch team published a screenshot showing an email from Bybit's staff requesting that eXch block certain wallet addresses that were flagged as receiving stolen funds. The team apparently declines, accusing Bybit of undermining its reputation by labeling deposits from eXch addresses "high-risk."
"In light of these circumstances, we would appreciate a clear explanation as to why we should consider providing assistance to an organization that has actively undermined our reputation," the team wrote in its response to Bybit, according to the published screenshot.
"At this point [it] is really not about bybit or any entity, it's about our general approach towards hackers as an industry, really hope that eXch can reconsider and help us to block funds outflowing from them," wrote Bybit CEO Ben Zhou on X.
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