- Bybit exploited for $1.4 billion worth of ETH, CEO confirms.
- Despite the massive loss, Bybit remains solvent and can cover the losses, Ben Zhou said in a post on X.
Bybit has suffered a major exploit, with a hacker stealing more than $1.4 billion worth of ETH and staked ETH.
The crypto exchange’s CEO Ben Zhou confirmed the hack via X on Friday, noting the attacker exploited a vulnerability that allowed them to drain its ETH cold wallet.
News of the hack, one of the largest ever in the market, saw several crypto prices react lower. Ethereum price shed some of its intraday gains, although the reaction remained largely muted as at the time of writing.
Exchange is solvent, Bybit CEO says
Bybit also posted an update detailing the incident:
“Bybit detected unauthorized activity involving one of our ETH cold wallets. The incident occurred when our ETH multisig cold wallet executed a transfer to our warm wallet. Unfortunately, this transaction was manipulated through a sophisticated attack that masked the signing interface, displaying the correct address while altering the underlying smart contract logic. As a result, the attacker was able to gain control of the affected ETH cold wallet and transfer its holdings to an unidentified address.”
While the exchange has been hit by the attack, Zhou stated that Bybit “was solvent” and that the exchange can cover these losses.Exchange’s withdrawals were also unaffected, he noted.
“Bybit is solvent even if this hack loss is not recovered,” he posted on X. “All of clients’ assets are 1-to-1 backed, we can cover the loss.”
Several blockchain security platforms and investigators, including ZachXBT, noted the hacker had already began to transfer the funds to new addresses.
Meanwhile, blockchain intelligence firm Arkham announced a bounty as ecosystem players try to unmask the hacker’s identity.
