Bybit, the second-largest crypto exchange by trading volume behind Binance, said that it has lost almost $1.5 billion in a hack on Friday. The theft is the biggest in the history of the industry, and makes up more than half of the total funds lost in hacks in all of 2024, according to a report by analytics company Chainalysis.
Bybit CEO Ben Zhou confirmed in a post on X Friday morning that a hacker took control of one of the platform’s offline Ethereum wallets and transferred all of its contents to an unidentified address. Data analytics firm Arkham Intelligence confirmed that Bybit had recently experienced $1.4 billion in outflows, and that the hacker had already disbursed the funds to several different crypto wallets.
News of the hack spooked Bybit customers, who fled the platform causing “massive withdrawals,” Zhou said in a livestream on X. When asked how many customers would be affected, head of derivatives and institutions Shunyet Jan said, “Right now, everyone is affected.”
As the markets reacted, with Bitcoin down 3% and Ethereum down 4%, Zhou attempted to quell clients’ fears by saying that their assets remain secure. “Bybit is Solvent even if this hack loss is not recovered. All of the clients assets are 1 to 1 backed, we can cover the loss,” he wrote on X, referring to fiat currency or cryptocurrency reserves that the company keeps to support its clients’ crypto holdings.
The largest crypto hack ever
The $1.4 billion hack is the largest in the history of the crypto industry.
It dwarfed previous thefts, including the $615 million hack of the Ronin Network in 2022 and the $613 million hack of the Poly Network in 2021. The largest single hack from last year targeted a Japanese crypto exchange called DMM Bitcoin, which lost more than $300 million.
While the identity of the Bybit hacker—or hackers—remains unknown, the Chainalysis report points out that North Korean hackers were behind a number of significant hacks last year, and have been traced to other large thefts, including against DMM Bitcoin and the Ronin Network.
North Korean hackers have become notorious for “employing advanced malware, social engineering, and cryptocurrency theft to fund state-sponsored operations and circumvent international sanctions,” the report says.
