Millions in Stolen Cryptocurrency Being Laundered by KelpDAO Hackers

Following the KelpDAO exploit, in which $290 million was stolen, the perpetrators have initiated the laundering process of their illicitly obtained funds, as revealed by on-chain analyst ZachXBT and data from Arkham. According to Arkham, the wallet controlling the exploit's proceeds made two transactions totaling $117 million and $58 million on the Ethereum blockchain during European hours on Tuesday. ZachXBT noted that a portion of the stolen funds has started to be transferred across different chains, with approximately $1.5 million being bridged from Ethereum to Bitcoin via Thorchain, and an additional $78,000 routed through the Umbra privacy protocol - a tactic previously employed by North Korean hacking group Lazarus. The use of cross-chain routing and privacy tools is indicative of the 'layering' stage of money laundering, suggesting that the attacker is preparing to further distribute the funds across multiple platforms. As one of the largest DeFi breaches in recent months, the KelpDAO exploit has sparked widespread negative sentiment and fears of contagion throughout the DeFi sector. In response to the hack, Layer 2 network Arbitrum froze $71 million in ether linked to the incident, potentially pressuring the exploiter to accelerate their efforts to move and launder the remaining funds.