Wormhole hacker transfers another $46M

By: Michael Wilson

February 13, 2023 7:10 AM

The Wormhole hacker may be looking for arbitrage possibilities involving Ethereum-pegged assets.

The ill-gotten crypto from one of the industry's largest exploits is on the move once more, with on-chain data revealing that another $46 million in stolen cash has just been transferred from the hacker's wallet.

Wormhole's token bridge was exploited in February 2022, culminating in the third largest crypto hack in 2022. Wrapped ETH (wETH) worth approximately $321 million was stolen.

According to blockchain security firm PeckShield, the hacker's connected wallet has reactivated, transferring $46 million in cryptocurrency.

This consisted of roughly 24,400 Lido Finance-wrapped Ethereum staking token (wstETH) valued approximately $41.4 million and 3,000 Rocket Pool Ethereum staking token (rETH) worth approximately $5 million that were transferred to MakerDAO.

According to PeckShield, the hacker appears to be looking for yield or arbitrage chances on their stolen loot, as the assets were exchanged for 16.6 million DAI.

The MakerDAO stablecoin was then used to purchase 9,750 ETH worth about $1,537 and 1,000 stETH. This was then wrapped into 9,700 wstETH.

On February 10, an on-chain detective noticed the hacker "buying the dip."

However, over the last few hours, the price of Ethereum has plunged below those levels. According to CoinGecko, ETH was trading down 2.6% on the day at $1,505 at the time of writing.

stETH values depegged from Ethereum at the time of the transfers and rose as high as $1,570. At $1,541, they are now trading 2.4% higher than ETH. Furthermore, wstETH has depegged and is now worth $1,676, or 11.3% more than the underlying asset.

The new financial transfer comes just a few weeks after the hacker sent another $155 million in Ethereum to a decentralized exchange on January 24.

95,630 ETH were transmitted to the OpenOcean DEX before being transformed into ETH-pegged assets such as Lido's stETH and wstETH.