Catenaa, Tuesday, February 25, 2025- Crypto exchange eXch has denied accusations of facilitating money laundering for the Lazarus Group, the North Korean hacking syndicate behind the $1.4 billion theft from Bybit on February 21.
In a statement posted on the Bitcointalk forum on February 23, eXch refuted claims, asserting that it was “not laundering money for Lazarus/DPRK.”
Despite the denial, eXch acknowledged that a small portion of the stolen funds from the Bybit hack briefly passed through its platform. “An insignificant portion of funds from the Bybit hack eventually entered our address 0xf1da…1123,” the exchange noted, stressing that it was an isolated incident. Any fees collected from the transaction would reportedly be donated to public causes.
The allegations stemmed from blockchain investigators, including ZachXBT, who suggested that eXch laundered around $35 million from the hack. On-chain analysis also revealed that 34 Ether (ETH), worth approximately $96,000, had been sent mistakenly to another exchange’s hot wallet.
Following the hack, Bybit’s assets dropped by over $5.3 billion, including the stolen $1.4 billion. In a bid to recover the funds, Bybit announced the freezing of over $42 million. However, eXch has resisted Bybit’s requests to block the remaining stolen funds, citing prior incidents where it claimed Bybit froze its users’ assets without proper explanation.
Bybit CEO Ben Zhou urged the industry to cooperate, emphasizing the collective responsibility to tackle hackers and recover stolen assets.
