Bitcoin Dominance Soars Higher — Adam Back Shares Take on Bybit Ethereum Hack

When Hackers Go Fishing: The $1.4 Billion Catch of the Day! 🎣💰

In a turn of events that could only be described as a plot twist worthy of a second-rate detective novel, Adam Back, the cypherpunk extraordinaire and Satoshi Nakamoto’s right-hand man, has taken to his X account to share his thoughts on the Bybit exchange debacle. It appears that a band of nefarious hackers has made off with a staggering $1.4 billion worth of Ethereum, the second largest cryptocurrency, leaving the trading platform looking rather like a bank after a heist in a silent film.

Analysts, with all the confidence of a cat walking on a tightrope, suspect that the notorious hacker group Lazarus, hailing from the land of North Korea, is behind this audacious exploit. One can only imagine the raucous laughter echoing through their lair as they count their ill-gotten gains.

Adam Back Takes a Swing at Ethereum as Bybit Gets Hacked

Our dear friend Adam, a prominent cypherpunk and Bitcoin enthusiast, tweeted with the kind of glee usually reserved for children on Christmas morning, declaring that with the EVM contract being hacked yet again, “Bitcoin dominance ratchets higher.” One can almost hear the triumphant trumpets blaring in the background.

He even had the audacity to quote his own earlier tweet, where he lambasted Ethereum and its EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine) technology as “complex, fragile, blind-signed, un-securable.” Quite the mouthful, wouldn’t you say? It’s as if he’s taken a page from the book of dramatic insults!

Adding a sprinkle of salt to the wound, he noted that hackers have been draining billions from Ethereum “per year for years straight.” One can only hope they at least bought a nice dinner with it.

#bitcoin dominance ratchets higher. Another day, another EVM contract hack.

— Adam Back (@adam3us) February 22, 2025

But wait, there’s more! His former colleague, the ex-CSO at Blockstream and now the JAN3 CEO, Samson Mow, decided to throw his hat into the ring. He tagged Vitalik Buterin, suggesting that perhaps a little rollback of the Ethereum chain might be in order to prevent the North Korean hackers from cashing in their stolen ETH for a cool $1.4 billion to fund their nuclear escapades. Because, you know, nothing says “let’s fix this” like a good old-fashioned hard fork!

He reminded the community of the 2016 hard fork after the DAO hack, when Buterin and his merry band of developers decided to roll back Ethereum, resulting in the birth of Ethereum Classic (ETC) and Ethereum (ETH). Ah, the good old days!

Meanwhile, other major exchanges, such as Binance, Bitget, and MEXC, have gallantly stepped in to support Bybit’s liquidity with loans of roughly 114,500 ETH and 12,652 stETH. It’s like a financial superhero team-up, with Binance CEO Richart Teng and former CEO CZ tweeting their support for Bybit. One can only imagine the cape-wearing antics behind the scenes!

Hackers Converting Bybit ETH to Bitcoin

In a plot twist that could rival any soap opera, Bybit’s CEO and co-founder, Ben Zhou, tweeted that the hackers have begun laundering their stolen Ethereum by converting it into Bitcoin via Chainflip. It’s like watching a magician pull a rabbit out of a hat, only the rabbit is a pile of stolen cryptocurrency!

Zhou, ever the optimist, addressed the bridge to help Bybit block these transactions, as well as any other shenanigans the hackers might attempt. He also mentioned that Bybit plans to launch a bounty program, inviting the community to help them “block or trace the funds that result in fund recovery.” Because who doesn’t love a good treasure hunt?

We are starting to see some funds being moved to as bridge to convert to BTC: bc1qlu4a33zjspefa3tnq566xszcr0fvwz05ewhqfq

with below transactions:
0x4f5f7ba657bf518d383828183087978b452b99da6cde0c9b94739b8d72a8c5ef…

— Ben Zhou (@benbybit)

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2025-02-22 15:42