Germany seized eXch’s 34 million EUR worth of crypto assets and the project’s servers

After accusations of involvement in the Bybit hack, the exchange team announced the closure

Frankfurt prosecutor’s office confiscates 34 million EUR worth of cryptocurrencies from eXch exchange

09.05.2025 - 13:30

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3 min

What’s new? German law enforcers have seized the local server infrastructure of the crypto exchange eXch. In a joint operation between the Central Office for Combating Cybercrime (ZIT) and the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) in Frankfurt am Main, they seized not only over 8TB of data media, but also 34 million EUR in bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, and Dash. For the BKA, this is the third-largest seizure of crypto assets.

Press release

What else is known? Launched in 2014, eXch allowed users to make cryptocurrency swaps (exchanging one asset for another). The platforms on the darknet specifically stated that the exchange did not take any anti-money laundering (AML) measures.

For example, users were not required to undergo identification procedures and their data was not stored. In this regard, the crypto exchange via eXch proved particularly convenient for hiding financial flows, the prosecutor’s office emphasized in a press release.

Launder $200 million and walk off into the sunset: how the eXch exchange worked and why it shut down

eXch openly clashed with Bybit even before the latter was hacked for $1,5 billion

Since its launch, the exchange has processed $1,9 billion worth of transactions, and some of the assets are believed to be of criminal origin. In addition, some of the funds stolen from crypto exchange Bybit in the February 21, 2025 hack with a total loss of $1,5 billion passed through eXch.

The operators of eXch are suspected of money laundering and operating a criminal online trading platform.

Bybit chief releases details on the movement of $1,4 billion stolen from the exchange

Over 68% of the stolen assets are still traceable on the blockchain

Due to rumors of a connection to the Bybit hack, the eXch team announced the closure on May 1, and law enforcers began quickly gathering evidence. ZIT and BKA worked closely with the Netherlands Fiscal Information and Investigation Service (FIOD) during the investigation. Its findings could also contribute to the investigation of a large number of other cybercrimes, the press release emphasized.

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