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

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 noted that a portion of the stolen cryptocurrency has already been 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 privacy protocol Umbra - a tactic previously employed by North Korean hacking group Lazarus. The use of cross-chain routing 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 breaches in recent months, triggering a wave of negative sentiment across the DeFi sector and fueling concerns of potential contagion spreading to other blockchains. In response to the hack, Layer 2 network Arbitrum announced on Monday that it had frozen $71 million in ether linked to the breach, a move that may pressure the exploiter to expedite the transfer and laundering of the remaining funds.