The hacker who attacked the decentralized cross-chain protocol Orbit Bridge in December is beginning to move the stolen crypto.
The digital asset de-anonymizing platform Arkham notes that the hacker moved 8,671 Ethereum (ETH) worth $32 million to a new address and is in the process of depositing the crypto stack into Tornado Cash, a controversial coin mixing service that facilitates anonymous digital asset transactions.
The exploiter purloined more than $100 million worth of crypto from Orbit Bridge in late December and still holds $66 million in ETH and over $20 million in the stablecoins DAI and USDT.
Orbit Bridge serves as a bridging service for Orbit Chain (ORC), a cross-chain platform focused on scalability.
Following the breach, the Orbit Chain team sent out notifications urging the hacker to negotiate by 10:00 AM on January 11th. The hacker did not respond, however, leading the project to offer up to $8 million to anyone who could provide information that would identify the hackers or recover the stolen funds.
Orbit Chain’s native token, ORC, is trading at $0.00669 at time of writing and is down more than 90% from its December price, according to CoinGecko.
The US sanctioned Tornado Cash in 2022 for national security purposes. One of the project’s founders, Roman Storm, was arrested last year and slapped with charges related to allegedly laundering $1 billion in criminal proceeds, including hundreds of millions of dollars for the Lazarus Group, the sanctioned North Korean cybercriminal outfit.
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