Kraken restricts accounts linked to suspected $133M crypto theft

With more than $133 million tied to alleged crypto theft carried out from an unknown entity in Europe now frozen, Kraken has issued a statement.  It said it was working with law enforcement agencies in an attempt to recover the funds.

The response was after blockchain investigator ZachXBT’s discovery of more withdrawals connected to the suspected theft. The victim’s identity and how access to the funds was obtained is not known yet.

Kraken responds as the estimate grows

Kraken platform said it was investigating reports that some assets subsequently moved through accounts on its platform.

Kraken also said its security systems were uncompromised, no customer accounts had been taken over, and customers faced no ongoing risk. 

The alleged theft was first reported by ZachXBT on November 2, who said an EU-based organisation had been stolen from. He mentioned that around $106 million had allegedly been stolen from different exchanges on November 1.

On November 3,  he raised the estimate to above $133 Million. This was because he located an extra $27 Million of withdrawals. Some occurred with drawn funds since his publicly launched alert, he stated.

He had hinted at the victim being a large financial house in Western Europe.

Investigators follow funds across exchange accounts

Blockchain analytics firm Bitquery separately traced USDC withdrawals worth $108.8 million from what it identified as wallets under Kraken, Crypto.com, and OKX.

Bitquery looked at Ethereum transactions involving some exchange wallets on November 1–2. Its narrower coverage and earlier reporting cutoff was what made its report different from ZachXBT’s.

It said about $62.98 million in stablecoins was exchanged for 27,553 ETH within about four hours.

As of November 2, around $78.3 million remained in the wallets it linked to the suspected attacker. About $30.5 million had moved beyond those tracked funds through exchanges, bridges and other services.

Other exchanges take action

Crypto.com reportedly said it had acted to block the funds that were linked to the incident from moving through its platform. That its services remained operational and user funds were safe.

Reportedly, OKX also acknowledged that it was looking into the matter.

Final Summary

• Kraken restricted relevant accounts and said it is assisting law enforcement with recovery efforts.
• Theft of over USD 133 million has taken place, according to ZachXBT, but the victim and initial access are not known.