Ethereum worth $36 million laundered
From the $100 million in looted Ethereum, the criminals have wired $36 million to a mixing service.
PeckShield claims that the hackers who stole $100 million worth of virtual currencies from the Horizon bridge of the Harmony Protocol have already started to launder the money. $64 million remains in the hacker’s Ethereum wallet. It was determined through a blockchain analysis that three transactions were conducted from the IP used in the June 23rd breach totaling about 30,000 ETH (or roughly $36 million).
A layer-1 proof-of-stake blockchain called Harmony was introduced in 2019. Users may transmit coins across blockchains such as the Harmony network and Ethereum, the Binance Chain, and Bitcoin via its Horizon bridge. While, crypto mixing services enable users to hide the roots of their cryptocurrency, by gathering huge sums of currencies in a single pool and “mixing” them. It is a procedure frequently used to launder illegally obtained tokens.
No compromise was detected on the Harmony protocol
The cyberattack on Thursday resulted in the theft of $100 million in cryptocurrency, which was then exchanged for Ethereum. The business has recently said that it has discovered no proof of any compromises in its smart contract algorithms nor flaws on the Horizon platform, even though the incident was first characterized as a Harmony protocol exploitation.
On Saturday, Harmony Protocol confirmed on Twitter that it will not support the filing of criminal proceedings if the bridge money were returned and offered a $1 million reward for their recovery. With today’s transactions, it looks like the offer was turned down.
After the incident, Harmony reassured its clients that the theft had no effect on its BTC gateway and that the business was collaborating with forensic investigators and federal agencies to find the attacker and recover the money. Harmony also stepped up its security standards.
