Germany seized 38 million dollars from bybut hack.

[Glowy]

The lawyer enforcement authority of Germany has put a halt on funds it believes are proceeds from bybits misfortune in February of 2025.
Recall that the second largest exchange got hacked in February, and in few minutes funds (digital assets) over 400 ethereum was moved from the exchange. The stolen assets were circled to over a thousand wallets. (That was quite a hit, well planned if you ask me). This had happened because of a little security fault.
The stealing was made easy by the eXch platform. Am exchange platform believed to help in money laundering.
German authorities today, 9th May 2025 announced the seizure of $103,220 worth of BTC, $2,000 worth of LTC $99.48, Dash $23.85.

Now that there is a suspect, will Bybits recover it's lost funds. Can we still trust Bybit with our assets?

What warning signs should exchange users look out for?

Hint? Links below 👇🏼
https://cointelegraph.com/news/what-happened-in-crypto-today

https://cryptotvplus.com/2025/05/germany-seizes-38m-in-crypto-from-exchange-tied-to-bybit-hack/

[Oshosondy]

The stealing was made easy by the eXch platform. Am exchange platform believed to help in money laundering.

The coin was laundered on several exchanges and not just only exch. OKX DEX and ParaSwap were among and more. Why the regulators do not seize the money from the other two exchanges? Why only exch?

All of them have helped in money laundering if exch is accused. All of them do not require KYC also. Bybit also has DEX called WEB3 on the exchange which does not require KYC.

Now that there is a suspect, will Bybits recover it's lost funds. Can we still trust Bybit with our assets?

We can only see what will later happen, nobody can know if Bybit can recover all the funds. It is good to know that the $38 million is owned by exch and not the money Lazarus group laundered.

[Die_empty]

Now that there is a suspect, will Bybits recover its lost funds. Can we still trust Bybit with our assets?

What warning signs should exchange users look out for?

Hint? Links below 👇🏼
https://cointelegraph.com/news/what-happened-in-crypto-today

https://cryptotvplus.com/2025/05/germany-seizes-38m-in-crypto-from-exchange-tied-to-bybit-hack/

If Bybit can prove that the money that was recovered was part of the $1.4 billion that was hacked on Feb. 21, 2025, the exchange should be entitled to the funds.

Trusting a centralized with your funds is risky. Exchanges are not safe to keep your funds because they are prone to hacks and other human errors.

Since the exchange is still functioning without any restrictions, I think they have enough funds to cover up the losses. But nothing is certain since we cannot ascertain the actual state of the exchange.
The article didn't state how the fund was recovered. I thought it was reported that the North Korean Lazarus group was behind the hacks.

[Oshosondy]

If Bybit can prove that the money that was recovered was part of the $1.4 billion that was hacked on Feb. 21, 2025, the exchange should be entitled to the funds.

How can it be proved when the scammers have successfully made use of the exchange. Why not arrest OKX and others also? They all should be arrested because the scammers also successfully make use of their exchanges. Read what I posted above.

[TryNinja]

They seized eXch coins, not Bybit's hacked funds.

That's like saying the government seized funds from a certain bank robery because the guy behind the attack used my store to buy some kebabs and the state taxed me.

Now, if I was a eXch user and used the service to swap some LTC to BTC... would they give me my pending funds? Or is the FIOD just stealing regular customers that want some on-chain privacy? cc @FIOD Netherlands - didn't you say "privacy is not the problem"?

[Ziskinberg]

Now that there is a suspect, will Bybits recover it's lost funds. Can we still trust Bybit with our assets?

This is a good start, at least it shows the law enforcement is doing their job. Once they pinpoint the suspect, they’ll hopefully get some info to keep the investigation going and track down the rest of the money. But since this is the biggest hack, the people behind it are probably organized and knew something like this could happen. Let’s just hope they can crack it so people can start trusting exchanges again.

[justinlamode]

It is actually good that the law enforcement authrorities are able to recover some of those funds as that shows that they are actively working to bring some form of sanity to the entire system. What I find very strange is why no one is question the security system of Bybit neither is anyone questioning their staff for possible insider compromise. Just like Oshosondy rightly said, there are many DEX exchanges involved in this incidence and none of them is being held accountable or being questioned about the hack apart from exch. That may show that there is more than they are telling us, perhaps they might want to use the opportunity to go after any infrastructure that represent privacy. I learnt that exch have been forced to shutdown their operation and by doing that, let's see if it will lead to more recoveries of the stolen funds.

[JiiBs]

Ita gradually becoming the order to building reserves, seizures and seizures. They’ve found out a system that works for them, wheee they don’t get to get their money into the market, they don’t get to print some more useless notes to circulate around and cause inflation but, to find means to acquire some values to themselves by seizing valuable Bitcoin from both criminals and unlucky individuals with whatever charge they could lay on them. Government isn’t going easy on this holding no more, effects from when they realize they just can’t stop it.

[Hazink]

OP, your story and news are not accurate; there are too many errors that could end up passing wrong information to those who don't pay attention to details. What was stolen from Bybit in total was about 401,000 ETH and not 400 ETH, and you don't say the stealing was made easy by eXch as if the team was among those who planned the attack.

It was just unfortunate enough that the innocent exchange was used by the criminals to clean their money, and not even a large portion of that money was laundered using eXch, but because it's an exchange that promotes privacy, they will be on the front line of news to carry the bad name (it has always been so).

Promoting privacy alone is a crime to the government. The Bybit hack was just the perfect excuse, which the authorities used to clamp down on eXch, and the money that they claim to have seized doesn't belong to Bybit, but because Bybit funds were moved through that exchange, they will make everything appear to be so.

[hd49728]

German authorities today, 9th May 2025 announced the seizure of $103,220 worth of BTC, $2,000 worth of LTC $99.48, Dash $23.85.

Now that there is a suspect, will Bybits recover it's lost funds. Can we still trust Bybit with our assets?

What warning signs should exchange users look out for?

It must be two questions?

Do you think Bybit will compensate users as victims of the hack?
Do you think Bybit exchange is trustable for our assets after that hack?

For the second question, I think Bybit is trustable enough becaus they proceeded mass user withdrawals after the hack and their exchange did not collapse after the hack and user bankrun.

For a first question, this article can help you.
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/02/24/bybit-replenished-reserves-after-record-breaking-1point5-billion-hack.html

Bybit did well after that hack but it's not good advice to store your assets on any centralized exchanges, not only with Bybit.
Reminder: do not keep your money in online accounts

[Darker45]

You're making an unfair and misleading statement. EXch didn't make the stealing easy. As a matter of fact, eXch didn't have anything to do with the stealing.

The stealing and that some of the stolen funds were swapped via eXch are two different incidents. The former, the act of stealing, only involved alleged Lazarus hackers and Bybit. There were the highly trained and skilled state-sponsored hackers and the weak security of an exchange. EXch wasn't in any way part of it.

It was only after the hackers successfully took advantage of Bybit's security and stolen the funds that eXch, among others, came into the picture. EXch was simply one among a number of exchanges where the criminals moved their stolen funds.

[FinneysTrueVision]

The coin was laundered on several exchanges and not just only exch. OKX DEX and ParaSwap were among and more. Why the regulators do not seize the money from the other two exchanges? Why only exch?

All of them have helped in money laundering if exch is accused. All of them do not require KYC also. Bybit also has DEX called WEB3 on the exchange which does not require KYC.

Those are all DEX aggregators. Trades are routed through many decentralized liquidity sources, which are not under the control of OKX or ParaSwap. They can try to block hackers from using their frontend, but there is no real effective way to completely prevent them from using DEXs.

exch was centralized and could be shut down much easier. They also had full control over the liquidity used to make swaps, so there is a higher degree of liablility. The laundering of Bybit hacked funds is what has gotten most of the headlines but there was much worse people who were allegedly using eXch, and this just made them an easy target for law enforcement.

[Oshosondy]

but there was much worse people who were allegedly using eXch, and this just made them an easy target for law enforcement.

It is what you read that you believed. Know that as good people are using the decentralized exchanges, so are hackers are also using the exchangs also. The only point you have is that exch is centralized which makes true while others is decentralized. But see what they do to tornado cash founder before Trump sent him out of prison.

[NotATether]

Bullshit.

eXch is not a money laundering platform. And I don't particularly feel sorry for Bybit for failing to do its own enhanced due diligence before transferring 1.4 billion dollars.

[tabas]

The stealing was made easy by the eXch platform. Am exchange platform believed to help in money laundering.

Very wrong to say this. People who don't know exch will think that exch did all the job and helped them to launder the stolen funds. Exch is just another service, an instant exchange, which is a normal service that there are also other instant exchanges out there. It just so happens that they've been used for that. But if they weren't used by the hackers, they won't be thought of that. Too much damage and slander already done to them where in fact that they have already decided to close down the service.

[bitcoindusts]

If Bybit can prove that the money that was recovered was part of the $1.4 billion that was hacked on Feb. 21, 2025, the exchange should be entitled to the funds.

How can it be proved when the scammers have successfully made use of the exchange. Why not arrest OKX and others also? They all should be arrested because the scammers also successfully make use of their exchanges. Read what I posted above.

They cannot arrest or sanction any exchanges without proper evidence and court order.  They should be investigated yes but if these exchanges voluntarily cooperate with the investigation and is helpful with the case, aside from proving to be not in cahoots with the hacker then they should not be arrested nor be involved with the case.  The one who should be arrested is the one involve in the hack.  It would be unfair for the exchange to be arrested because one of their client is involved in criminal activities despite of the exchange cooperation with the authority.

[Porfirii]

I (want to) imagine that the million dollars seized will be given back to the people who lost them, but has the German government said something about the destination of the funds? It doesn't seem easy to track the money back to their rightful owners, although I don't think Germany will create any strategic reserve of Bitcoin anytime soon either, so what's next?

[BlackBoss_]

I (want to) imagine that the million dollars seized will be given back to the people who lost them, but has the German government said something about the destination of the funds? It doesn't seem easy to track the money back to their rightful owners, although I don't think Germany will create any strategic reserve of Bitcoin anytime soon either, so what's next?

The Bybit hack is famous and the German government does know about it. With this hack, the victim is Bybit and Safe multisig wallet, and if there are receivers of those seized coins as victims, it will not be any user on Bybit exchange.

Remaining part of story is how German government will use seized coins but Bybit exchange will have good advantage if they are considered as a legit company in legal terms in Germany. I am not sure about it but gooling shows me that German people can use Bybit and I see good chance for Bybit exchange to claim those coins from German government.

[Porfirii]

I (want to) imagine that the million dollars seized will be given back to the people who lost them, but has the German government said something about the destination of the funds? It doesn't seem easy to track the money back to their rightful owners, although I don't think Germany will create any strategic reserve of Bitcoin anytime soon either, so what's next?

The Bybit hack is famous and the German government does know about it. With this hack, the victim is Bybit and Safe multisig wallet, and if there are receivers of those seized coins as victims, it will not be any user on Bybit exchange.

Remaining part of story is how German government will use seized coins but Bybit exchange will have good advantage if they are considered as a legit company in legal terms in Germany. I am not sure about it but gooling shows me that German people can use Bybit and I see good chance for Bybit exchange to claim those coins from German government.

I don't know how it could impact Bybit not getting that money back, but I hope you're right and it eventually goes to it's legit owners, whoever they are, and I explain: As hd49728 said, it's not good advice to store your assets on any CEX, and I won't be sorry for Bybit either if they don't get the money back, just like NotATether, but I wouldn't like to find out that users, despite their recklessness, are affected by the incident.

Most of us have trusted one CEX or another when we started and some of us have suffered the consequences of their poor management too, but in some cases, which are the ones that worry me, it can be a lesson too expensive to learn. This doesn't seem to be the case, but credibility is a valuable asset that gets damaged little by little, if it is not taken good care of it.

[Coyster]

The authorities would always accuse any no-KYC service of assisting in money laundering and terrorism financing, they expect every service to be data farms and for nobody to have their privacy anymore. The authorities "stole" coins from eXch, Bybits coins were stolen by hackers and not eXch platform, the authorities should charge platforms like Bybit to take their security seriously, so they do not lose people's money and then they start going after no-KYC platforms.

Since the exchange is still functioning without any restrictions, I think they have enough funds to cover up the losses. But nothing is certain since we cannot ascertain the actual state of the exchange.

Exactly as you have said, nothing is certain, yes they are still functioning, but there are some services that were insolvent for sometime before they finally gave in and collapsed.