The hacker who infiltrated Sam Bankman-FTX Fried’s exchange is now one of the world’s largest holders of Ether.
A wallet linked to a hacker exchanged about $49 million in stablecoins – mostly Dai – for ether on Thursday.
New ETH Whale
As a result, the hacker now owns 228.523 ether, or around $288 million. This makes the anonymous criminal the 35th largest Ethereum investor, according to data from Etherscan.
The FTX hack added to the damage caused by the company’s insolvency, which had sought protection from creditors the previous week.
More than a million customers now wonder if they will ever receive their money back from the platform.
The wallets on FTX were drained about $663 million in tokens, with $477 million suspected of being robbed and the remainder transferred to FTX’s secure storage.
“Inside Job” Claims
The timing of the hacking attack left thousands of cryptocurrency enthusiasts wondering if there is any chance that the crime could be a result of an “inside job”.
The Exchange filed for bankruptcy under chapter 11, according to United States law. This means that FTX will not completely cease to exist.
The exchange will continue operations in order to organize deals in order to pay up its debt.
However, due to the size of the exchange’s collapse, it is unlikely that the firm will be able to fully pay back investors in the future.
Mario Newfal, founder and CEO of IBC Group stated on Twitter that “The hacker is very likely an inexperienced insider,”
However, there are those who are not so quick in jumping to conclusions. In an interview with Coindesk, Dyma Budorin, co-founder and chief executive of blockchain security auditing firm Hacken, stated that the hacking was caused due to a “stupid mistake,”.
When asked if Sam Bankman-Fried was in fact responsible for the hack, Budorin refused to answer.
“That’s confidential information,” Dyma Budorin said. However, he hinted that the owner of the wallet is in fact an American citizen.
Looking from the outside, it is easy to make up assumptions. However, so far it is evident that are no proofs that can back up the argument that someone inside FTX hacked the exchange willingly.
