Blockchain analysis company Elliptic has reported on October 12 that as many as 72,500 Ether (ETH) assets stolen from FTX have appeared for the first time since the exchange was attacked in November 2022.
According to Elliptic, the thief converted ETH worth $120 million into Bitcoin (BTC) through the multi-chain decentralized exchange (DEX) THORSwap since September 30, 2023.
The first conversion transactions were made just a few days before the trial of Bankman-Fried began on October 3. At the time of the hack, the amount converted was worth $87 million, equivalent to 18% of the total stolen amount of $477 million.
FTX’s hacker employed a similar money laundering technique to the one used in November 2022 when the hacker converted 65,000 ETH ($100 million) into BTC using the cross-chain bridge RenBridge.
Elliptic wrote in the new report: “180,000 ETH was not converted to Bitcoin via RenBridge until the early hours of September 30 – at which point it was worth $300 million.”
Elliptic noted that FTX’s hacker lost $94 million in the days following the hack as the attacker hurriedly laundered money through centralized exchanges, cross-chain bridges, and mixers.
Nearly a year after the hack, the identity of the FTX thief remains unidentified, Elliptic pointed out. The blockchain analysis company proposed three possibilities for who could be behind the FTX theft: an insider FTX employee, North Korea’s Lazarus Group, and criminal groups linked to Russia.
“Some FTX employees would have had the authority to move the company’s cryptocurrency assets for operational reasons. In the chaos surrounding the company’s bankruptcy and collapse, an insider may have taken these assets,” Elliptic’s report stated.