According to ZachXBT, a blockchain sleuth, and data from Arkham, the perpetrators of the $290 million KelpDAO heist have initiated the laundering process of their stolen funds. On Tuesday, during European hours, the wallet controlling the exploit proceeds made two transactions on the Ethereum blockchain, valued at $117 million and $58 million, as per Arkham's data. Furthermore, ZachXBT reported that a portion of the stolen funds is being transferred across different blockchains, with approximately $1.5 million being bridged from Ethereum to Bitcoin via Thorchain, and an additional $78,000 routed through Umbra, a privacy protocol.
Notably, North Korean hacking group Lazarus has previously employed protocols like Thorchain for laundering purposes. The use of cross-chain routing and privacy tools at this stage suggests that the attacker is preparing to further distribute the funds across multiple platforms. The KelpDAO breach is one of the most significant decentralized finance hacks in recent months, triggering a wave of negative sentiment and contagion fears across the DeFi sector.
In response to the hack, Arbitrum, a layer 2 network, announced on Monday that it had frozen $71 million in ether linked to the breach, potentially pressuring the exploiter to accelerate their efforts to move and launder the remaining funds.