Suspicious outflows of about $21 million from wallets tied to Japanese crypto miner SBI Crypto were flagged as “stolen” this week by a leading blockchain investigator.
Key Highlights:
- Blockchain analyst ZackXBT said the missing funds included Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, Dogecoin, and Bitcoin Cash.
- The assets were allegedly routed through instant exchanges and the mixing app Tornado Cash.
- The incident follows a string of major crypto breaches this year, including Bybit’s $1.4 billion loss and Infini’s $50 million theft.
- SBI Crypto, owned by Japan’s SBI Group, has not yet made the outflows public.
ZackXBT said on Telegram that the movements bore hallmarks of organized laundering, with funds shifted to instant exchanges or mixed through Tornado Cash. He also noted similarities between the SBI incident and past operations linked to North Korea’s Lazarus Group.
Authorities have long accused Lazarus of exploiting coin mixers and decentralized exchanges to disguise stolen funds. The U.S. Justice Department has tied the group to several high-profile hacks, including the Bybit exploit earlier this year.
Tornado Cash, the Ethereum-based mixing service, has been at the center of the controversy. The U.S. Treasury blacklisted it in 2022 before removing it from its sanctions list this year. Still, law enforcement agencies continue to monitor its use in laundering activities.
SBI Crypto, which operates a mining pool under the publicly traded SBI Group, has not commented on the incident. Last year, its crypto arm SBI VC Trade agreed to assume control of DMM Bitcoin’s customer accounts after a $308 million hack.
The latest episode adds to mounting losses across the digital asset industry, with theft volumes by February already approaching last year’s totals.