Millions in Stolen Cryptocurrency Being Laundered by KelpDAO Hackers

According to on-chain analyst ZachXBT and data provided by 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 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 already started moving across different chains, with approximately $1.5 million being transferred from Ethereum to Bitcoin via Thorchain, in addition to $78,000 routed through the Umbra privacy protocol. Notably, North Korean hacking group Lazarus has previously employed similar protocols, such as Thorchain, for laundering purposes. The use of cross-chain routing and privacy tools typically characterizes the initial 'layering' phase of money laundering, indicating that the attacker 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, triggering a wave of negative sentiment throughout the DeFi sector and raising concerns about potential contagion spreading to other blockchains. In a related development, Layer 2 network Arbitrum announced on Monday that it had frozen $71 million in ether linked to the hack, a move that could prompt the exploiter to expedite efforts to transfer and launder the remaining funds.