Bitget Hacker Turns to Zcash Privacy Pool After Near Rejects $50M in Swaps
The Bitget hacker, linked by investigators and Bitget’s CEO to North Korea, has begun laundering part of the $387.5 million theft through Zcash’s shielded pool Ironwood. ZachXBT said about 2,700 ZEC, worth roughly $3.8 million, was moved into the private pool, where sender, receiver, and amount are hidden. The hack began Sept. 24 when Bitget detected unauthorized hot-wallet transfers; Chen said attackers accessed backend systems and spoofed transaction data, not private keys. TRM Labs said the stolen assets were split into fresh wallets and routed through cross-chain swap services such as THORChain, Across, Bridgers, Chainflip, and FixedFloat. Near Intents blocked over $50 million in related swaps, freezing about $503,000 and allowing roughly $166,000 through. THORChain rejected calls to selectively block the attacker, saying network halts are for protocol emergencies, not targeted freezes. Bitget says its protection fund covers losses and is offering bounties for frozen or recovered funds.
