ZachXBT Slams Asgardex for Keeping $900K in Fees From Bybit Hack

The Asgardex – Bybit hack talk refers to the profits the app made from the Bybit hack. ZachXBT, who has been investigating the $1.4 billion hack of Bybit since it happened on February 21, wrote on X that multiple Asgardex contributors refused around $900,000 in fees from the hack.

The conversation started with crypto analyst Tay’s (@tayvano_) post blaming Asgardex, ThorChain, and eXch platform for making it possible for hackers to bridge more than 500,000 stolen ETH worth over $1.3 billion through their solutions.

Asgardex responded to the allegations, arguing that it’s just a wallet/interface while adding that other wallets, including Trust, Thorwallet, OKX wallet, and Chainflip, were also used by the hackers.

ZachXBT Says Knowingly Making Profits off the Hack Is Criminal

Joining the conversation, Notorious blockchain detective ZachXBT pointed out that, compared to Asgardex, multiple teams decided to return the fees. His stance is that keeping Thorchain as decentralized as possible is different from not censoring activity at the protocol level.

ZachXBT called it criminal to profit from the Bybit hack and then refuse to return those fees.

On the other hand, THORChain founder John-Paul Thorbjornsen, aka JP Thor, believes Asgardex shouldn’t be blamed for the flow of funds.

In an X post, he said requiring fees from OSS (Open Source Software) wallet devs is the same as requiring fees from ETH and BTC nodes. 

According to him, Asgardex is being targeted simply because it’s transparent, and transactions can be easily tracked. Meanwhile, he believes centralized exchanges have made millions from illicit flows but won’t return any funds.

JP Thor called the situation disappointing.

ZachXBT countered, replying to JP that Asgardex is a centralized interface. “Trying to compare a centralized interface to a decentralized network is an invalid argument,” he added.

The blockchain investigator also reminded JP of the time he accidentally hired IT workers from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) before being alerted.

What Asgardex could have done, according to ZachXBT, was temporarily shut down the interface, block hacker addresses on the user interface and return the generated fees.

In the end, ZachXBT clarified that his complaints were directed only at Asgardex, not Thorchain.

On March 4, Bybit CEO Ben Zhou shared the latest updates on the case. He revealed that 77% of the stolen funds are still traceable, 20% have gone dark, and 3% have been frozen. Hackers primarily used ThorChain to convert ETH into Bitcoin.

Zhou emphasized that 11 parties have assisted the exchange in freezing the stolen funds, with ZachXBT, Mantle, and Paraswap being the top three contributors.

Previously, ZachXBT had alerted that the North Korean Lazarus Group was behind the hack.