KelpDAO Hacker Converts $175 Million in Stolen ETH to Bitcoin in Just 1.5 Days

[cryptoenthusiast]

The hacker behind the KelpDAO exploit has dramatically accelerated their laundering operation, converting 75,700 stolen Ethereum — worth approximately $175 million — almost entirely into Bitcoin in roughly 1.5 days. The rapid conversion followed Arbitrum's Security Council freezing the attacker-linked ETH earlier this week, which cut off access to a portion of the stolen funds and pushed the hacker to move faster on the remaining assets. The primary tool used for the cross-chain swap was THORChain, a decentralized protocol that allows direct swaps between blockchains without a centralized intermediary.

The hacker's frantic activity inadvertently generated significant revenue for THORChain itself, bringing the platform $800 million in trading volume and $910,000 in fee revenue in the process. Several smaller transfers were also routed through Umbra Cash, a privacy-focused stealth payment protocol, before Umbra pulled its hosted frontend offline and placed it in maintenance mode. The team stated that access would only be restored once doing so would no longer interfere with ongoing recovery efforts — a rare and notable step for a privacy protocol to take in response to an active exploit.

[bonk]

defi: decentralized finance
also defi: decentralized escape routes