Millions in Stolen Cryptocurrency Being Laundered by KelpDAO Hackers

According to ZachXBT, a blockchain investigator, and data from Arkham, the perpetrators of the $290 million KelpDAO heist have initiated the laundering process of their stolen cryptocurrency. Arkham's data reveals that the primary wallet controlling the stolen funds executed two significant transactions on the Ethereum blockchain on Tuesday, totaling $117 million and $58 million. ZachXBT further reported that a portion of the stolen funds is being transferred across different blockchains. Approximately $1.5 million was moved from Ethereum to Bitcoin using Thorchain, while an additional $78,000 was routed through Umbra, a privacy-focused protocol. Notably, North Korean hacking group Lazarus has previously utilized protocols like Thorchain for laundering purposes. The employment of cross-chain transactions and privacy tools is a common strategy in the initial stages of money laundering, suggesting that the attacker may be planning to further distribute the funds across multiple platforms. The KelpDAO breach is one of the most substantial DeFi security incidents in recent months, triggering widespread negative sentiment and concerns about potential contagion effects across the DeFi sector. In response to the hack, Arbitrum, a layer 2 network, announced that it had frozen $71 million in ether linked to the incident, which may pressure the perpetrator to expedite the movement and laundering of the remaining stolen funds.