According to on-chain research firm ZachXBT, FTX attackers used ChipMixer for money laundering and have already laundered around 360 Bitcoins (BTC).
Update: FTX attackers started laundering money using ChipMixer (~360 BTC so far) https://t.co/xuiCaajnh8 https://t.co/qsSJs8d8OV
—ZachXBT (@zachxbt) November 25, 2022
previous attack
The FTX Drainer has been active since November 12th. In addition to the massive attacks that caught the community’s attention, the attacker was constantly moving tokens between his 8:00 and 10:00 UTC.
The attack first came to attention when FTX and FTX US began experiencing withdrawals worth $450 million. The stolen funds were first sold as tokens such as Ethereum (ETH) and Binance USD (BNB) before being consolidated into one main wallet.
On November 17th, we noticed that the attackers exfiltrated another 30,000 BNB tokens. This was valued at approximately $7.95 million at the time.another big hit came On November 21st, the attackers moved 180,000 ETH in 12 separate transactions.
chip mixer
According to August 2022 data, ChipMixer facilitated the laundering of 48.9% of funds on the Bitcoin network, while Tornado Cash helped 74.6%. Approximately 26,021 Bitcoins were sent to ChipMixer and 14,370 Bitcoins were withdrawn from the protocol in the first six months of the year.
According to crypto influencer FatManTerra, ChipMixer is deployed by the US government and is a “US government honeypot.”
🧵 Today I share my long-standing theory behind a covert US government operation designed to partially crack Bitcoin privacy and de-anonymize transactions. The mixer, ChipMixer, is actually a US government honeypot, I believe. Here’s why:
— Fat Man (@FatManTerra) November 23, 2022
According to FatManTerra, ChipMixer was released in 2017, with ample reserves and an unusual “pay-as-you-need” model, and quickly caught the eye. We spent a lot of money on bounties and advertising despite having zero revenue.
In a thread spanning 19 tweets, FatManTerra explained why he was “absolutely certain” that ChipMixer was a honeypot, and said it was also looking at other protocols that could be honeypots. I was. he said:
“After looking at the history of ChipMixer, it is clear that it is bankrolled by very wealthy entities who do not care about profitability and are burning a lot of money to make their service popular. Millions of dollars. was spent, but the proceeds are in small donations.”
