Millions in Stolen Cryptocurrency Being Laundered by KelpDAO Hackers, Data Reveals

Following the $290 million KelpDAO exploit, the perpetrators are now initiating the laundering process of their illicitly obtained funds, as indicated by on-chain analyst ZachXBT and data provided by Arkham. According to Arkham, the wallet controlling the exploit's proceeds made two significant transfers of $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 moved 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 in the early stages of laundering suggests that the attacker is preparing to further disperse the funds across multiple platforms. The KelpDAO breach is one of the most significant decentralized finance security breaches in recent months, triggering a wave of negative sentiment and contagion fears within the DeFi sector. In response, Layer 2 network Arbitrum announced the freezing of $71 million in ether linked to the hack, potentially pressuring the exploiter to accelerate their efforts to move and launder the remaining funds.