The Hunt for the FTX Thieves Has Begun
Cryptocurrency has always offered a strange mix of temptations and challenges for anyone trying to steal it. As digital cash, held in multibillion-dollar sums on hackable, internet-connected networks, it presents a lucrative target. But once it's stolen, the blockchains that almost every cryptocurrency is built on make it possible to follow that money's every movement and, very often, to identify the thieves. So after a massive heist pulled nearly half a billion dollars worth of funds out of the already collapsing FTX cryptocurrency exchange yesterday, the world's crypto tracers are now closely tracking where that loot ends up—and looking for any clues that reveal the thief to be an FTX insider or just an opportunistic hacker.
On Friday, hours after the major cryptocurrency exchange FTX had filed for bankruptcy in the wake of its epic, 10-figure collapse, FTX's remaining funds were drained of more than $663 million worth of cryptocurrency, much of which appears to have been stolen. "FTX has been hacked," wrote an administrator in FTX's Telegram channel. "FTX apps are malware. Delete them." Exactly how FTX might have been breached—and whether its apps are, in fact, compromised—is far from clear, and FTX hasn't officially announced any theft. But the company's US general counsel wrote in a tweet that "unauthorized access to certain assets has occurred." (FTX did not respond to WIRED's request for comment.)
Soon, crypto-tracing and blockchain analysis firm Elliptic revealed that the $663 million outflow seemed to be a combination of FTX's movement of coins into its own storage wallets and a mysterious theft. According to Elliptic, fully $477 million of the funds appear to have been stolen, though another crypto-tracing firm, TRM Labs, puts the number at $338 million. Twenty-four hours after the theft, most of that money had moved into just a handful of cryptocurrency addresses—where the entire cryptocurrency tracing industry, a vast community of amateur crypto sleuths, and no doubt law enforcement agencies around the globe are now all watching it with an unblinking gaze.
