[Image: Flickr]
A company that was targeted in what’s believed to be the largest theft in history is now trying to recover its losses by crowdsourcing online bounty hunters.
Last week, hackers thought to be part of North Korea’s infamous Lazarus Group stole $1.46 billion (R26 billion) in cryptocurrency from ByBit, a popular crypto trading platform, and are now trying to offload their booty through a complex online laundering process.
In response, ByBit is offering cash rewards to anyone who helps track down and prevent the criminals from cashing out.
“Join us in the fight against Lazarus,” said ByBit’s CEO, Ben Zhou, in an online post, linking to a new website that offers a bounty for anyone who can assist.
Join us on war against Lazarus – https://t.co/6DnaH1WTId
Industry first bounty site that shows aggregated full transparency on the sanctioned Lazarus money laundering activities. V1 includes:
– Becoming a bounty hunter by connecting your wallet and help tracing the fund, when…— Ben Zhou (@benbybit) February 25, 2025
Since cryptocurrencies are stored in public wallets, which are easily searchable, it’s possible to trace the money when the hackers divide it into smaller amounts and send it through various channels to hide its origin. The website now even features a live leaderboard showcasing those who have successfully tracked down portions of the stolen loot.
The bounty scheme rewards 5% of the identified sum to those who convince a company holding the funds to freeze them, with another 5% going to the company that takes action. Already, the website is displaying millions of dollars in payments to successful crypto investigators.
“We’ve assigned a team to maintain and update this site, and we won’t stop until Lazarus or other bad actors in the industry are eliminated,” Mr. Zhou stated.
Crypto investigation firm Elliptic hailed the unique initiative as a “really positive innovation.”
“There are many talented blockchain investigators out there who will now be incentivized to track down these stolen funds and help seize them.”
However, Louise Abbott, crypto fraud partner at Keystone Law, warned that the heist would continue to weaken trust in an already dodgy industry.
“If such a large-scale hack can occur on the world’s second-largest exchange, it’s likely to happen again,” she said.
Without central banks or regulatory authorities overseeing crypto transactions, victims of crypto hacking have no institution to turn to for help. This leaves ByBit reliant on the goodwill of other crypto companies to act on its behalf.
Not all of them are cooperating though, but ByBit’s website also tracks which crypto firms have failed to respond in their hour of need.
One exchange, eXch, is reportedly flat-out refusing to help. Researchers, however, allege that eXch is well known for allowing users to trade crypto anonymously and has laundered “hundreds of millions of dollars in cryptoassets derived from criminal activity, including multiple thefts linked to North Korea.”
So far, $75 million from the ByBit hack has been traced through the exchange, according to analysis.
ByBit has also pledged to open its bounty website – which features a logo depicting North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s hair with a knife through it – to other victims of North Korea’s Lazarus Group. The group have been blamed for around $6 billion of crypto thefts in recent years.
North Korea has, of course, never admitted to being responsible for any of the hacks.
[Source: BBC]
