Suspected EU crypto theft estimate rises to $133M: ZachXBT
ZachXBT identified another $27 million in exchange withdrawals, some of which occurred after he first flagged the suspected crypto theft.
Blockchain investigator ZachXBT has significantly raised his estimate of a suspected crypto theft originating from an unidentified European Union entity to over $133 million. On Tuesday, he disclosed an additional $27 million in withdrawals from centralized exchanges, elevating the estimated losses from the initial $106 million reported on Monday.
ZachXBT postulated that a prominent financial institution in Western Europe might have been targeted and is attempting to conceal the incident. He also highlighted that the absence of a proper incident disclosure allowed more than $30 million to be laundered, which could have been frozen by EU law enforcement. The true identity of the victim and allegations of a cover-up have yet to be confirmed.
According to Bitquery, $62.98 million in stablecoins was converted into 27,553 Ether (ETH) within approximately four hours. As of Monday, around $78.3 million remained in wallets connected to the suspected attacker, while $30.5 million had been transferred out of the tracked addresses. A mere $3.74 million in USDC remained, which Circle—the stablecoin issuer—could potentially freeze.
ZachXBT earlier reported that the attacker was transferring funds into ETH and Monero (XMR) via instant exchanges and cross-chain bridges, noting that the laundering patterns did not align with those typically employed by North Korea’s Lazarus Group.
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