The hacker who stole over $100 million worth of crypto from the decentralized cross-chain protocol Orbit Bridge in December is now beginning to move the stolen digital assets. According to Arkham, a digital de-anonymizing platform, the hacker has moved 8,671 Ethereum (ETH) valued at $32 million to a new address and is in the process of depositing the funds into Tornado Cash, a controversial coin mixing service that allows for anonymous transactions.
The hacker still holds $66 million in ETH and over $20 million in the stablecoins DAI and USDT that were stolen from Orbit Bridge. Orbit Bridge is a bridging service for Orbit Chain (ORC), a cross-chain platform that focuses on scalability. In response to the breach, the Orbit Chain team issued notifications urging the hacker to negotiate by January 11th, but there was no response. The project has offered up to $8 million to anyone who can provide information to identify the hackers or help recover the stolen funds.
ORC, the native token of Orbit Chain, is currently trading at $0.00669 and has experienced a more than 90% decrease from its price in December. The U.S. government sanctioned Tornado Cash in 2022 for national security reasons. One of the founders of the project, Roman Storm, was arrested last year on charges related to allegedly laundering $1 billion in criminal proceeds, including hundreds of millions of dollars for the sanctioned North Korean cybercriminal organization, the Lazarus Group.
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