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. Arkham's data indicates that the wallet controlling the stolen assets made two significant transfers worth $117 million and $58 million on the Ethereum blockchain during European hours on Tuesday. ZachXBT has reported that a portion of the stolen cryptocurrency is being moved across different chains, with approximately $1.5 million being transferred from Ethereum to Bitcoin via Thorchain, in addition to $78,000 routed through the Umbra privacy protocol. The use of cross-chain transfers and privacy tools is a common practice in the initial stages 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 within the DeFi sector and raising concerns about potential contagion effects on other blockchains. In a related development, Layer 2 network Arbitrum announced that it had frozen $71 million in ether linked to the hack, a move that may pressure the hacker to accelerate their efforts to move and launder the remaining funds.