Binance hackers made memecoins to launder stolen crypto
The scheme was designed to disguise the path of money and make it harder to trace the ill-gotten gains.
Hackers who stole $6.3 billion from Binance in the cryptocurrency industry's largest heist have used memecoins to launder a portion of the stolen funds. At least six new tokens were created on the NEAR blockchain network in the days following the theft, according to blockchain analytics firm Elliptic. These tokens allowed the attackers to move about $430,000 of the stolen crypto, aiming to disguise the path of the money and make it harder to trace the ill-gotten gains.
The memecoins, which had no apparent connection to the hackers, traded heavily for a few hours before being abandoned. Although the majority of the stolen NEAR remains untouched, Binance co-CEO Richard Teng reported that $2.85 billion of the stolen crypto has been frozen or intercepted, mostly in stablecoins.
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