Balancer Attacker Swaps 21,000 ETH for 617.43 BTC Worth $48.72 Million

According to Onchain Lens and Ai Yi, wallets linked to the Balancer exploit have continued converting stolen ETH into BTC via THORChain and moving funds through Tornado Cash, with only 1,000 ETH reportedly remaining.

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Fact Check
The claim's key numeric detail is directly supported by 'Balancer 攻击者将 13191 枚 ETH 兑换为 386 枚 BTC', which states that Onchain Lens observed the Balancer attacker exchanging 13,191 ETH for 386.52 BTC worth about $30.54 million. The broader context in the claim is also supported: 'Balancer 攻击者转移 100 枚 ETH 并通过 Tornado Cash 清洗,仍持有 21900 枚 ETH' says the attacker resumed movement after 5 months and used Tornado Cash; 'Balancer黑客将1100枚ETH兑换为BTC - BlockBeats' says the attacker was using THORChain to convert ETH to BTC; and 'Balancer 黑客目前已将 14,300 枚 ETH 换成 419.3 枚 BTC' attributes a later cumulative update to Ember. These later figures extend the activity rather than contradict the 13,191 ETH snapshot. Confidence is medium rather than high because the most primary cited X posts from Onchain Lens and Ember could not be directly fetched due to rate limiting, leaving secondary reports as the main evidence.
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Summary

Wallets linked to the Balancer exploit have continued moving and converting stolen funds, with Onchain Lens reporting that 21,000 ETH was swapped for 617.43 BTC worth $48.72 million over the past three days and that 1,000 ETH worth $2.32 million remains. Earlier on-chain tracking showed lower cumulative figures, including 13,191 ETH swapped for 386.52 BTC and later 14,300 ETH for 419.3 BTC, alongside another 5,609 ETH sent to THORChain over nine hours. Ai Yi said the suspected actor overlaps with the Aave attack and has frequently used Tornado Cash. Source material also contains conflicting valuations of the original Balancer exploit, citing more than $116 million in losses and, elsewhere, $98 million in stolen assets.

Terms & Concepts
  • THORChain: A cross-chain liquidity protocol that lets users swap native assets across different blockchains without a centralized exchange.
  • ETH: The native cryptocurrency of Ethereum, used for network transactions, smart contracts, and fees.
  • BTC: The native cryptocurrency of the Bitcoin network and the largest digital asset by market capitalization.