Binance hacker swaps stolen Solana for Bitcoin

A wallet linked to the record Binance hack moved about $46.4 million in Solana ↘ 6.68% in one hour on November 1 and began swapping it for Bitcoin ↘ 5.63%. The move opens another laundering route for proceeds of the $6.3 billion theft. Blockchain tracker Lookonchain said the attacker was converting 970,522 stolen SOL, worth about $95.9 million, and had moved 486,970 SOL through the cross-chain service Relay Protocol, crypto.news reported. Separately, Chainalysis says the launderers have reached Solana after draining about $500 million from staging wallets on Tron ↘ 3.57%, according to The Defiant.thedefiant.io+1

Solana joins the laundering trail

Lookonchain tied the activity to a Solana address that Arkham Intelligence labels as belonging to the Binance attacker. The first transfer was about half of the reported SOL holdings, and roughly $49.5 million remained, Brave New Coin noted. The initial report did not say how much Bitcoin had reached its final addresses. Relay's role was identified from the transaction route, not from any statement by the service, according to crypto.news. Earlier the same day, Lookonchain reported that the attacker had sold more than 130 altcoins for about 123,400 ETH and 1.69 million USDC, worth nearly $279 million in total.crypto.news+1

Chainalysis said the Tron operation used more than 1,000 addresses and over 3,000 deposits before the funds spread across chains, The Defiant reported. Elliptic said nothing stolen on Bitcoin, the XRP Ledger, Solana or NEAR has been frozen, because those native assets have no issuer that can block them. It added that almost all of the stolen TRX had been laundered, mostly into Ethereum ↘ 7.89%.elliptic.co+1

North Korea attribution

The thefts began around 4:20 p.m. Eastern Time on October 29. Chainalysis estimated the losses at about $6.4 billion and described automated laundering, with many addresses first receiving exactly 1 TRX. On October 31, the FBI blamed North Korea's TraderTraitor unit, the group behind the $1.5 billion Bybit hack. It asked exchanges and analytics firms to block transactions linked to the attackers' addresses. The bureau published more than 600 Ethereum addresses, 19 Bitcoin wallets and one Solana address.pbs.org+2

Binance reopens withdrawals

Binance resumed Bitcoin withdrawals on Sunday, November 1, after covering 95% of the stolen tokens with company funds. The remaining tokens trade less often and will take longer to buy back, Reuters reported. About $3 billion of the affected assets have been frozen with help from industry partners, and the exchange has set aside about $6.34 billion to cover losses. "Binance will absorb the financial impact of the stolen funds, not our users," the company said.charlotteobserver.com+1