Crypto hit by largest hack ever as Bybit loses $1.4 billion – Ethereum traders liquidated

The crypto market is reeling after Bybit suffered the largest hack in industry history, with over $1.4 billion in Ethereum (ETH) and staked Ethereum (stETH) drained from the exchange.

The attack has triggered a wave of liquidations, particularly in Ethereum futures markets, as panic sets in.

According to CoinGlass , ETH futures traders saw $76 million in liquidations over the past four hours, with $43 million coming from short positions.

In the past 24 hours, 183,176 traders were liquidated, bringing the total liquidation amount to $499.23 million.

Ethereum has dropped 3% in the past hour, now trading at $2,727, while Bitcoin is down 1% to $98,091.

Bybit co-founder and CEO Ben Zhou confirmed the attack in a post on X (formerly Twitter), explaining that a planned transfer was manipulated, allowing hackers to drain the exchange’s ETH cold wallet.

"However, the signing message was to change the smart contract logic of our ETH cold wallet," Zhou said. "[The] hacker took control of the specific ETH cold wallet we signed and transferred all ETH in the cold wallet to this unidentified address." Zhou reassured customers that Bybit remains solvent, despite the loss.

Funds are moving — hackers splitting ETH into 39 wallets

Blockchain security researcher ZachXBT was the first to notice the suspicious outflows, stating in his Telegram channel that a source had confirmed to him that Bybit was hacked.

The stolen ETH is being split between 39 different addresses, likely an attempt by the hacker to obscure the funds and avoid detection.

Arkham launches $50,000 bounty

On-chain intelligence firm Arkham announced a new bounty to identify the hacker, offering 50,000 ARKM tokens as a reward for information.

"We’ve created & funded a bounty to help identify the person or organization behind today’s >$1B Bybit hack," Arkham posted on X. "Submissions to this bounty will be shared with the Bybit team to support their investigation."

The biggest crypto hacks in history

The cryptocurrency industry has witnessed several major security breaches over the years, with Bybit’s $1.4 billion exploit now ranking as the largest ever.

In March 2022, a critical exploit in Axie Infinity’s Ronin Network led to a $625 million loss in ETH and USDC. Attackers compromised validators, making it one of the largest DeFi hacks in history.

In 2014, Mt. Gox Exchange, once handling 70% of all Bitcoin transactions, Mt. Gox collapsed in 2014 after hackers stole 850,000 BTC — worth $460 million at the time.

In August 2022, hackers stole $611 million in crypto from Poly Network by exploiting a smart contract vulnerability. In a twist, the attacker later returned most of the funds.