Millions in Stolen Cryptocurrency Being Laundered by KelpDAO Hackers

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 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 chains, 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 protocols like Thorchain for laundering purposes. The employment of cross-chain routing and privacy tools is indicative of the early 'layering' phase of money laundering, suggesting 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 hacks in recent months, triggering a wave of negative sentiment throughout the DeFi sector and concerns about potential contagion spreading to other blockchains. Furthermore, 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.