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

According to on-chain investigator ZachXBT and data from Arkham, the perpetrators of the $290 million KelpDAO heist have initiated the process of laundering 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 funds is already being moved across different chains, with approximately $1.5 million being transferred from Ethereum to Bitcoin via Thorchain, and an additional $78,000 routed through the Umbra privacy protocol. Notably, North Korean hacking group Lazarus Group has previously employed protocols like Thorchain for fund laundering purposes. The use of cross-chain routing and privacy tools is a common practice in 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 across 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 may pressure the exploiter to accelerate their efforts to move and launder the remaining funds.