Odaily News In response to the previous asset theft, Bybit officially released a detailed announcement of the incident for the first time: At 20:30 on February 21, Beijing time, Bybit detected unauthorized activity in the Ethereum cold wallet during a routine transfer. This transfer was part of Bybit's official plan to transfer ETH from the ETH multi-signature cold wallet to the hot wallet. Unfortunately, the transaction was manipulated by a complex attack that changed the smart contract logic and hid the signature interface, allowing the attacker to control the ETH cold wallet. As a result, more than 400,000 ETH and stETH with a total asset value of more than US$1.5 billion were transferred to unknown addresses.
Funds stolen: Over $1.5 billion worth of ETH and stETH.
The main reason: During the planned regular transfer process, the ETH multi-signature cold wallet was maliciously manipulated during the transfer process.
Bybit reiterates the following key points: All other cold wallets under Bybit are safe and customer funds are not affected. Please be wary of other scams; although there has been a surge in withdrawal requests, excessively high request volumes may cause withdrawal delays, but all withdrawals are being processed normally and 70% of pending requests have been processed; Bybit's reserves are strong and 1:1 backed, all customer assets are fully protected, and users can view relevant information on the Proof of Reserve (PoR) webpage .
Meanwhile, Bybit is working with leading blockchain forensics experts to track down the stolen funds and resolve the situation; its security team is investigating the root cause, with a particular focus on potential vulnerabilities in the Safe.global platform user interface that could be exploited during trading. Bybit has an asset management scale of over $20 billion and will use bridge loans if necessary to ensure user funds are available. The Bybit platform and all other services, including trading products, cards, and P2P, are operating normally.