Following the theft of $290 million in the KelpDAO exploit, the perpetrators have initiated the laundering process of their illicitly obtained funds, as indicated by on-chain analyst ZachXBT and data from Arkham. On Tuesday, during European hours, the wallet controlling the exploit proceeds made two transactions on the Ethereum blockchain, totaling $117 million and $58 million, according to Arkham.
ZachXBT has reported that a portion of the stolen funds is being transferred across different chains, with roughly $1.5 million being bridged from Ethereum to Bitcoin via Thorchain, and an additional $78,000 routed through the Umbra privacy protocol - a tactic previously employed by North Korean hacking group Lazarus. The use of cross-chain routing and privacy tools in the initial 'layering' phase of money 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 security incidents in recent months, triggering a wave of negative sentiment across the DeFi sector and raising concerns about potential contagion to other blockchains. In response to the hack, Layer 2 network Arbitrum announced the freeze of $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.