The hacker who looted nearly $22 million worth of crypto from a US government wallet this week appears to have returned the vast majority of the funds, according to the digital asset deanonymizing platform Arkham.
On Thursday, the exploiter plundered the crypto from a government address that hadn’t moved any digital assets in eight months.
However, Arkham notes that less than 24 hours later, that same address received $19.3 million back, recovering 88% of the compromised dollar value.
The impacted wallet contained crypto seized from the hackers who looted Bitfinex back in 2016.
The hacker this week stole millions of dollars worth of the stablecoins USDT, USDC, Aave USDC (aUSDC) and Ethereum (ETH), and Arkham noted on Thursday that they had begun selling the proceeds for ETH and funneling the crypto through a suspicious address linked to a money-laundering service.
Arkham has reported numerous digital asset movements affiliated with US government wallets this year:
In July, a different US government address moved more than $2 billion worth of Bitcoin (BTC) seized from the illicit online marketplace known as the Silk Road. Arkham said at the time that the coin shifting likely represented “a 10,000 BTC deposit to an institutional custody/service.”
In April, a US government address sent more than $131 million worth of seized BTC to a Coinbase Prime wallet.
Generated Image: Midjourney