Vultisig founder says DPRK-linked Bybit transactions are ‘legitimate’
Crypto sleuth ZachXBT has called out a crypto wallet firm Vultisig for crowing about $200,000 it generated in revenue that is largely made up of crypto stolen from Bybit and laundered by North Korea.
THORChain founder John-Paul Thorbjornsen claimed the $200,000 in revenue was made through swaps via his multi-chain crypto wallet firm Vultisig. However, ZachXBT noted, “a good chunk of that revenue is being generated from the Bybit hack.”
He said, “DPRK has been doing BTC -> BNB or AVAX TC swaps via Vultisig for the past few days in size.”
Read more: FBI confirms North Korean ‘TraderTraitor’ to blame for $1.5 billion Bybit hack
Addressing ZachXBT’s analysis, Thorbjornsen told Protos, “They are legitimate transactions.”
“Anyone who can sign a transaction can broadcast on-chain and pay a fee for inclusion. Ethereum and Bitcoin nodes have already accepted those transactions and made fees.”
ZachXBT has been helping the crypto exchange Bybit trace the $1.4 billion worth of ether (ETH) that was stolen by the North Korea-linked hacking group, Lazarus.
Today, Bybit CEO Ben Zhou claimed that almost 89% of the hacked funds remain traceable, while 7.59% have gone dark and 3.54% have been frozen.
He said roughly 440,091 ETH, worth around $1.23 billion, has been converted into 12,836 BTC across 9,117 wallets and that the hackers have started to use crypto mixers to obfuscate the stolen funds.
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