Following the theft of $290 million in the KelpDAO breach, the hackers have started to launder their stolen funds, as revealed by ZachXBT's on-chain analysis and data from Arkham. On Tuesday, during European hours, Arkham reported that the wallet controlling the exploit proceeds made two transactions on the Ethereum blockchain, totaling $117 million and $58 million.
According to ZachXBT, a portion of the stolen funds has been transferred across 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 - a method previously used by North Korean hacking group Lazarus. The use of cross-chain routing and privacy tools at this stage suggests that the attacker is preparing to further distribute the funds across multiple platforms. The KelpDAO breach is one of the largest DeFi hacks in recent months, fueling negative sentiment and contagion fears within the DeFi sector. In response, Arbitrum, a layer 2 network, froze $71 million in ether linked to the hack, potentially pressuring the exploiter to accelerate their efforts to move and launder the remaining funds.