Poloniex Hacker Transfers Massive $32 Million Bitcoin Stash

Popular blockchain investigator PeckShieldAlert reported on April 30 that an address associated with the notorious Poloniex hacker transferred 501 BTC, valued at roughly $32 million, to three new wallet addresses. The move appears to be an attempt to conceal the origin of the stolen funds.

Poloniex Hacker Continues Efforts to Conceal Funds

PeckShieldAlert revealed that the largest Bitcoin transaction executed by the Poloniex hacker involved the transfer of 486.62 BTC, approximately $30.8 million, to a single address.

Two smaller amounts of 10 BTC and 5 BTC, valued at around $623,000 and $316,000, respectively, were also moved to new wallet addresses.

The incident traces back to a hot-wallet hack on the Poloniex exchange on November 10, which resulted in a loss of over $33 million.

PeckShieldAlert initially reported the hack and notified the exchange. This was followed by insights from other on-chain analysts, particularly Tom Wan, who revealed that the thief had stolen several assets, including ETH and LINK coins worth $10 million and $2.4 million, respectively.

Subsequently, Lookonchain analysts disclosed that the Poloniex hacker attempted to launder the stolen funds by exchanging them for ETH and TRX.

On November 18, 2023, PeckShieldAlert reported that Poloniex knew the hacker’s identity and was in contact with law enforcement in China, Russia, and the US. In exchange for the stolen funds, a white hat bounty of $10 million was also offered to the perpetrator.

So far, Poloniex’s attempts to recover the stolen funds have been unsuccessful. The hacker’s recent BTC transfer raises concerns about their attempts to hide their transaction trails and possibly liquidate the funds in the future.

$336.3 million Lost to Crypto Hack & Fraud in 2024 Q1

According to a recent report by blockchain security firm Immunefi, the cryptocurrency industry lost over $200 million to 32 hacks and rug pull incidents from January to February 2024. This represents a 15.4% increase compared to the same period last year when $173 million was stolen.

There has been a 23% decline in losses associated with hacking and scams in the first quarter (Q1) of 2024 compared to 2023, however. In Q1 2024, the total amount lost to hacking and fraud incidents was approximately $336.3 million, down from $437.5 million in the same quarter of 2023.

The report identified 46 hacking incidents and 15 cases of fraudulent activities. Two major projects, Orbit Bridge and Munchables, suffered the largest losses, totaling $144,480,000 – 43% of Q1 losses alone.

Immunefi further highlighted that decentralized finance (DeFi) platforms accounted for all of the exploits identified in Q1 due to their nearly $100 billion of total value locked in Web3 protocols, which makes them a lucrative target for bad actors.