The information that 228,523 ETH had been stolen from the FTX exchange broke as the controversial exchange declared bankruptcy. The individual in possession of the tokens has risen to the top 10 ETH holders in the world, with the assets valued at more than $260 million at the time of the theft.
Chainalysis also clarified any doubts about the assets’ ownership, saying that some were stolen and others were turned over to the Bahamas Securities Commission.
The claimed FTX hacker has relocated virtually all of the 200,000 eth holdings to new addresses, leaving only 5,000 eth on the original address. The coins were transferred via 12 withdrawals of exactly 15,000 eth to newly established addresses.
The wallet transferred 50,000 ETH tokens to a new address on November 20. The hacker then converted the stolen tokens into Ren Bitcoin (renBTC), a Bitcoin variant backed by the Ethereum network. Notably, the renBTC cryptocurrency is associated with Alameda Research, a failing trading business closely associated with FTX Group. According to CertiK, a blockchain analytics tool focusing on security, the hacker is laundering the stolen cryptocurrency through numerous intermediary addresses, a transaction pattern known as a “peel chain.”
This big of a dump will effect ETH
The price of Ethereum reacted considerably to the change, with the ratio dipping below 0.07 BTC per eth. Prior to this ‘hacker’ appearing, it was at 0.075 bitcoin, but eth’s price remained at $1,200. It is now worth below $1,110 that is a 6.5% of a daily drop.
Price pressure from the ‘hacker,’ who some claim is actually the Bahamas regulator who has stolen FTX’s asset, is likely to be much lower than speculation.
The ‘hacker’ transferred a large number of assets to eth, yet the price did not rise. Price appears to respond now that he may be selling some, as traders keep a close eye on the address in this fresh episode of bears just doing bear things during the bear market.