On Friday, Bybit, a cryptocurrency exchange, revealed that a “sophisticated attack” resulted in the theft of Ethereum (ETH) from one of its offline wallets. This incident was addressed by Ben Zhou, Bybit’s chief executive and co-founder, during a livestream, where he reported that the hackers managed to steal approximately 401,346 ETH, valued at around $1.4 billion at the time of the theft.
Renowned crypto security firm Elliptic and security researcher ZachXBT confirmed that the stolen ETH was worth about $1.4 billion, marking this event as the largest known cryptocurrency theft in history. Prior significant breaches included hacks against the Ronin Network and Poly Network, which involved losses of $624 million and $611 million, respectively, as recorded by Rekt, a site tracking web3 and crypto breaches.
Tom Robinson, Elliptic’s co-founder and chief scientist, commented to TechCrunch that this may represent the largest single theft ever, across any theft category, not limited to data breaches.
In the context of historical thefts, the removal of approximately $1 billion from the Central Bank of Iraq, considered the largest bank robbery on record, was reported by the financial news site World Finance.
Zhou explained on social media platform X that the attacker “took control” of one of Bybit’s cold wallets. This type of digital wallet is typically not connected to the internet. The hacker then transferred the funds to a “warm” wallet, which is connected to the internet.
Tony Au, a spokesperson for Bybit, referred inquiries to Zhou’s public statements. Zhou noted in one post that Bybit remains “solvent” and can absorb the loss even if the stolen funds are not recovered.
As of last week, Bybit, headquartered in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, possessed an estimated total asset value of $16 billion, based on information from CoinMarketCap.
In comparison, the total cryptocurrency stolen by hackers throughout 2024 was approximately $2.2 billion, according to blockchain tracking firm Chainalysis. Estimates indicate that in 2023, about $2 billion worth of cryptocurrency was stolen.
