WazirX Hackers Converted Nearly $150 Million Worth of Altcoins to ETH

WazirX hackers, said to be part of the North Korean Lazarus group, converted their haul of altcoins into ETH. Wallet activity shows $90.2 million worth of SHIB, $10.2 million worth of MATIC, and about $7.5 million worth of PEPE exchanged for ETH.

Like the hacker concludedbad actors held $52 million in ETH. Now, that figure has risen to $201 million after conversions. Spot On Chain, an on-chain analytics firm, published on X, “The total $ETH detention of #WazirX exploiter rose to 59,097 $ETH(201 million dollars)!” He added: “The exploiter did not make any subsequent moves with these $ETH and only has about $12 million in altcoins as $CHR, $CELR, $OOKIAND $FRONT.”

The reason behind the conversions to ETH is that many altcoins have the feature of being blacklisted when stolen, making it easier to trace funds from criminal activities. For example, USDT has this feature, which Tether uses to comply with authorities. Many other centralized altcoins do this as well.

However, ETH does not do this. So, converting stolen funds into ETH makes more sense for easy escape. Additionally, ETH’s massive liquidity and relatively high stability ensure that hackers can move between positions and not worry about volatility reducing the value of their loot.

Converting stolen assets often means that hackers will cover their tracks using mixing services like Tornado Cash or selling them for fiat on centralized exchanges (CEXs) without proper anti-money laundering (AML) controls. However, the hacker still holds approximately $12 million in altcoins, including CHR, CELR, OOKI, and FRONT.

Italian: insured its user base that is “leaving no stone unturned to locate and recover the funds.” He continued, “We are in contact with the best resources to assist us in this endeavor. While these are our conclusions from our preliminary investigation, we will keep you posted with further updates.”

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