The main exchange of cryptocurrency has experienced total outings of more than $ 5.5 billion after having had a hacking of almost 1.5 billion dollars that saw hackers, supposed to be from Lazare in Korea North, exhausting your cold ether wallet.
The total assets followed on portfolios associated with the stock market plunged from around 16.9 billion dollars to $ 11.2 billion at the time of writing the editorial time, according to Defillama data. The exchange now seeks to understand exactly what happened.
During a session of spaces X, the CEO of Bybit, Ben Zhou, revealed that shortly after the incident, he called “all hands on the bridge” to serve their customers with treatment with treatment and responding requests for information on what was going on.
During the session, Zhou revealed that the security violation saw the pirates fend for themselves with around 70% of the ether of their customers, which meant that the appeal had to quickly obtain a loan to be able to treat withdrawals. However, Zhou noted that Ether was not the most removed token, most users withdrawing the Stablecoin of Bybit instead.
The exchange, noted Zhou, has reserves to cover these withdrawals, but the crisis has deepened because, in response to the incident, the safe decided to temporarily close its smart wallet features to “ensure a absolute confidence in the security of our platform ”.
Safe is a decentralized guard protocol providing intelligent contract portfolios for the management of digital assets. Certain exchanges have integrated the safe, which allows users to maintain custody of their funds and has multisig features to improve the safety of their cold wallets.
While the exchange had reserves to save user withdrawals, $ 3 billion from the USDT were in a safe wallet that had just been closed when the wallet moved to understand the situation, according to Zhou.
On social networks, Safe said that even if he had “found no evidence that the official security front was compromised”, it was temporarily Stop “certain features” out of prudence.
While the Zhou and Bybit team determined how to safely withdraw their $ 3 billion, withdrawals were riding. Within two hours of security violation, the exchange faced screening requests of $ 100,000 on its platform, Zhou revealed.
Responding to the situation, Zhou told his security team to commit safely to “find a better way to get this money out”. The team ended up developing new software with “based on Etherscan” code to check the signatures “at a very manual level” to put the stables back to their wallet and cover the withdrawal overvoltage.
The exchange team had to stand overnight to be able to make withdrawals, according to Zhou. While the scholarship managed to move the $ 3 billion in Stablecoin reserves, it faced a banking “about 50%” from all funds within the Stock Exchange.
Zhou has said that since the incident, the exchange has moved a large amount of secure cold wallet funds and now determines which system it will use to replace the safe.
Pushing to “back up” Ethereum was not out of the table
Since the security violation, Bybit has hired the authorities. During the session, Zhou said that the Singaporean authorities took the question “very seriously” and that he thought that she had already been increased with Interpol.
Blockchain analysis companies, including the analysis channel, have been engaged. Zhou said: “As long as the bit is there and continues to follow [the stolen ether]I hope we can recover these funds. “”
He notably revealed that the push to “back down” the Ethereum blockchain, which was suggested by certain industry players on social networks, including the co-founder of Bitmex, Arthur Hayes, was on the table from a certain time if the community agreed with it.
“I asked my team to speak to Vitalik and the Ethereum Foundation to see if there are recommendations they can offer to help. I really thank all these guys on Twitter to ask if it is possible to retreat the chain. I don’t know what was the answer on their side, but everything that would help you try, “said Zhou.
When asked if “back” the chain is even possible, Zhou replied that he does not know. “I am not sure that it is an individual decision based on the spirit of the blockchain. It should be a work in progress to see what the community wants, “he said.
It should be noted that a “rollback” blockchain refers to a change of state which would allow the recovery of funds. Although the reversal of the Bitcoin blockchain is technically possible, such a change in state on Ethereum would be more complex, given its intelligent contract interactions and the state -based architecture.
Nevertheless, any change of state would require consensus and would probably lead to a controversial hard fork, arousing criticism from the community. This would probably divide the Ethereum blockchain into two networks, each with its own supporters.
As for what exactly caused hacking, it is not yet clear. According to Zhou, Bybit’s laptops have not been compromised. He said that the movements of the transaction signatories had been examined but seem to have been routine.
“We know that the cause is definitely around the safe cold wallet. Whether it’s a problem with our laptops or on the side of Safe, we don’t know. “Added Zhou.
