FTX hacker dumps 50,000 ETH, still among top 40 Ether holders
The hacker behind the bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX started transferring their Ether (ETH) holding to a new wallet address on Nov. 20. The FTX wallet drainer was the 27th largest ETH holder after the hack but dropped by 10 positions after the weekend ETH dump.
The FTX hacker drained nearly $447 million out of multiple FTX global and FTX.US exchange wallets just hours after the crypto exchange filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Nov. 11. Majority of the stolen funds were in ETH, making the exploiter the 27th largest ETH whale.
On Nov.20, the FTX wallet drainer 1 transferred 50,000 ETH to a new address, 0x866E. The new wallet address then swapped the ETH for renBTC (ERC-20 version of BTC) and bridged to two wallets on the Bitcoin blockchain. One of the wallets bc1qvd…gpedg held 1,070 renBTC while another wallet bc1qa…n0702 held 2,444 renBTC.
#CertiKSkynetAlert FTX Wallet Drainer is now the 37th largest holder of ETHDropped 10 places after transferring 50,000 ETH to 0x866E this morning We’re also continuing to see ETH swapped for renBTC in 0x866E Wallet currently holds ~1127 renBTC and ~19k ETH pic.twitter.com/sPJjtoWwud
Crypto analytic group CertiK later tracked the bridged renBTC on bc1qvd…gpedg address and found that the address employed a money laundering technique called peel chain to launder the renBTC.
A Peel chain is a technique to launder a large amount of cryptocurrency through a lengthy series of minor transactions. A small portion is ‘peeled’ from the subject’s address in a low-value transfer. These incremental laundered funds are often transferred to exchanges where they can be converted to fiat currency or other crypto assets.
Related: FTX hacker is now the 35th largest holder of ETH
At the time of the FTX
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