Binance Recovers $5.8M Linked to Axie Infinity Hack

Crypto exchange Binance has recovered $5.8 million worth of stolen funds originating from last month’s unprecedented Axie Infinity exploit.

The funds were distributed over some 86 accounts, Binance founder Changpeng Zhao said in a tweet on Friday. “The DPRK hacking group started to move their Axie Infinity stolen funds today. Part of it made to Binance, spread across over 86 accounts. $5.8M has been recovered,” he said.

The $625 million exploit, one of the largest in the crypto industry, was tied by U.S. security officials to North Korea’s “Lazarus” hacker group, as reported.
Ronin Network, the creators of the Axie Infinity bridge that saw the exploit, said in a blog post that the FBI had linked Lazarus with the validator breach and that the U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned the funds.
The exploiters have previously used the privacy tool Tornado Cash to convert stolen funds to ether and other cryptocurrencies, as reported.
Activity over the past week from the exploiter’s main address – tagged Ronin Bridge Exploiter on tracking service Etherscan – shows several thousand ether (ETH) were moved in the past few days. The wallet continues to hold some $285 million worth of the asset at writing time.

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Shaurya Malwa

Shaurya is the Deputy Managing Editor for the Data & Tokens team, focusing on decentralized finance, markets, on-chain data, and governance across all major and minor blockchains.

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