According to on-chain analyst ZachXBT and data from Arkham, the perpetrators of the $290 million KelpDAO heist have initiated the laundering process of their illicitly obtained funds. On Tuesday, during European hours, the wallet controlling the exploit's proceeds made two transactions on the Ethereum blockchain, totaling $117 million and $58 million. ZachXBT has reported that a portion of the stolen cryptocurrency has started to be transferred across different blockchains, with approximately $1.5 million being bridged from Ethereum to Bitcoin via Thorchain, and an additional $78,000 routed through the Umbra privacy protocol.
Notably, North Korean hacking group Lazarus has previously utilized Thorchain for laundering purposes. The employment of cross-chain transfers and privacy tools in the early stages of laundering 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 security incidents in recent months, sparking widespread negative sentiment and concerns about potential contagion across the DeFi sector. In response to the hack, Layer 2 network Arbitrum announced on Monday that it had frozen $71 million in ether linked to the incident, which may pressure the exploiter to expedite the movement and laundering of the remaining funds.