British Exchange Lykke Loses $22 Million In Cyberattack
UK-based cryptocurrency exchange Lykke abruptly ceased trading operations on June 10, following last week’s security breach that resulted in the loss of more than $22 million.
The Lykke exchange confirmed the incident in an official statement on X, saying it had to suspend trading and withdrawals in a bid to mitigate further harm.
The crypto platform said it had uncovered the IP address of the perpetrator responsible for the Lykke cyberattack and had commenced an investigation.
A criminal investigation against this person is ongoing. An external cybersecurity company has been contracted and works on blocking and recovering the stolen assets.
— Lykke✨Zero-fee crypto exchange✨ (@lykke) June 10, 2024
Prior to the exchange’s admission, on-chain investigator SomaXBT had accused the exchange of concealing the breach.
on June 4, @lykke CTX got exploited and lost $19.5 million worth crypto assets but team still trying to hide this fact
BTC (158 btc)
bc1qt64756h9aylujm9tpk826zndegpxtngmr6eqad
ETH (2161 eth)
0x9172a72f5009ca609833819763A2722e53806443 pic.twitter.com/bT4TaQLukY
— SomaXBT (@somaxbt) June 9, 2024
SomaXBT had sounded the alarm on June 9 about the Lykke cyberattack. The investigator revealed that hackers stole 158 BTC and 2,161 ETH worth an estimated $19.5 million.
MetaMask developer Taylor Monahan later confirmed the total stolen assets amounted to $22.4 million.
Further investigation revealed that the hacker laundered the stolen Ether by swapping them for DAI, an algorithmic stablecoin issued by MakerDAO. The Bitcoins were subsequently transferred to multiple wallets. It’s not uncommon for hackers to transfer their loot to unrelated wallets before legitimizing the coins using a coin mixer.
swapped all stolen ETH to DAI and
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