Recovery hopes fade as Kelp DAO hacker launders nearly all $220M in stolen funds
The Kelp DAO exploiter laundered about $220 million worth of remaining stolen funds in a bid to make them untraceable, excluding the $71 million frozen by Arbitrum’s Security Council.
The hacker behind the $293 million Kelp DAO exploit has laundered nearly all of the unfrozen stolen funds, or about $220 million, in just six weeks, according to Arkham data and onchain analysts.
The Kelp DAO hacker-tagged wallet appears to have laundered nearly all the stolen funds, with just $1.7 million remaining traceable in the wallet, according to blockchain data provider Arkham. The malicious actor drained 116,500 Kelp DAO restaked ETH (rsETH) on April 18, pushing the total amount stolen from crypto hacks to $630 million for April.
The funds were laundered in two layers: bridging to Bitcoin using crypto mixer Wasabi and then returning to Ethereum before withdrawing and depositing via mixing protocol Tornado Cash, according to onchain analyst Specter.
