Apparently, an elderly American person is a victim of a destructive bitcoin attack worth $ 330 million, which is currently the fifth cryptographic hack in history.
The attacker applied advanced social engineering tactics to access the victim’s portfolio, onchain Zachxbt said on April 30 update on X.
Hack took place on April 28, 2025, when Zachxbt marked a suspicious transfer with the participation of 3520 Bitcoin (BTC) worth USD 330.7 million.
After moving, the stolen stolen was quickly washed through over six immediate exchanges and turned into a monero cryptocurrency (XMR) focused on privacy.
Onchain data show that the victim had over 3000 BTC since 2017, without a immense history of transactions on a immense scale.
After a stolen attacker, he did not waste time on Bitcoin washing with the method of a rotary chain-a common blackout technique, in which immense sums are divided into smaller, more hard built-in fragments.
“330 million USD in BTC was obtained in two transactions, and then immediately distributed via the skin chains,” explained Yehor Rutitsia, Onchain researcher at Hacken, explained Cointelegraph.
“The funds began to flow into many immediate exchanges / mixers with small quantities, and then the mixers distributed funds in many new portfolios. The largest funnel chain is now 40 wallets.”
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Over 300 wallets and 20 exchanges were at stake
The internal tool Hacken, Extractor, followed BTC worth $ 284 million, which flew these chains, which currently amounts to about $ 60 million after repeated “peeling” and redistribution on low -card stock exchanges.
Routitsia said that over 300 hacker portfolios and over 20 stock exchanges or payment services, including Binance, were involved.
Cointelegraph contacted Binance to comment.
“The main problem in such cases (just like theft BTC Genesis 4064 BTC in August 2024) consisted in the fact that the freezing of centralized exchange accounts used in the washing process is hardened due to the particularly slow legal process of reporting and police investigations,” added Rudytsia.
Adding to complexity, the attacker quickly transformed a significant part of BTC into XMR. This movement caused a 50% augment in the price of Monero, and the token briefly reached USD 339.
“After intending the funds for Monero, tracking becomes virtually impossible because of its architecture maintaining privacy. The chance of recovery will fall significantly after this step,” said Hakan Unal Hakan Unal.
Unal said that the attacker probably had previously set accounts in many exchanges and OTC desks, which suggests a high degree of deliberation.
A diminutive part of the stolen BTC has also been separated to Ethereum and deposited on various platforms, which further complicates tracking efforts. Since then, investigators informed the exchange of potential freezing of funds.
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No friends washing tactics
Zachxbt earlier rejected the theory that the Lazarus group in North Korea could have been behind the attack, suggesting that independent hackers were responsible.
Although the attribute remains uncertain, experts agree that the laundry tactics show scarce automation and coordination for the attack of this size.
“Until now, we have not been able to confidently connect this activity with any known group of hackers, as the washing methods used – although sophisticated – do not clearly match the signatures of previously identified actors,” noted Unal.
He recommended the apply of Multisignature (Multisig) wallets to eliminate individual failure points, minimizing the exposure to warm wallets connected to the Internet, regularly rotating private keys and relying on the radiator based on equipment to protect immense bitcoins.
In the first quarter of 2025, hackers stole cryptography worth over $ 1.6 billion from stock exchanges and knowledgeable contracts, the Blockchain Peckshield security company said in a April report.
Over 90% of these losses are attributed to an attack of $ 1.5 billion on Bybit, a centralized cryptocurrency exchange, through the North -Core Lazarus Group hacking outfit.
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