According to ZachXBT, a blockchain investigator, and data from Arkham, the perpetrators of the $290 million KelpDAO heist have initiated the process of laundering their stolen funds. Arkham's data reveals that the primary wallet associated with the exploit executed two significant transactions on the Ethereum blockchain on Tuesday, involving $117 million and $58 million.
ZachXBT further reported that a segment of the stolen cryptocurrency has been transferred across different blockchains, with roughly $1.5 million being bridged from Ethereum to Bitcoin via Thorchain, accompanied by an additional $78,000 routed through the Umbra privacy protocol. Notably, the Lazarus Group, a hacking collective with ties to North Korea, has previously employed similar protocols for laundering purposes. The utilization of cross-chain transactions and privacy tools during the initial 'layering' phase of money laundering suggests that the attackers may be preparing to further distribute the funds across multiple platforms. The KelpDAO breach is one of the most significant decentralized finance incidents in recent months, contributing to a wave of negative sentiment and contagion fears within the DeFi sector.
In response to the hack, Arbitrum, a layer 2 network, has frozen approximately $71 million in ether linked to the breach, potentially pressuring the attackers to accelerate their efforts to move and launder the remaining stolen funds.