OKX suspends DeFi services due to connection to Bybit hack
Bybit CEO claims $100 million worth of stolen assets passed through OKX
17.03.2025 - 09:05
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What’s new? OKX has temporarily suspended services related to its decentralized exchange (DEX) aggregator. The reason was that hackers used the services to launder some of the funds stolen from the crypto exchange Bybit. It lost a total of $1,46 billion in the February 21 hack, the attack was carried out by North Korean hackers from Lazarus, a group involved in funding the government’s weapons program.
What else is known? Hackers’ use of tools developed by OKX, one of the leading global centralized exchange (CEX) OKX, has caught the attention of European regulators.
In a March 17 statement, the OKX team emphasized that it “made the proactive decision” to temporarily suspend services after consulting with regulators, which will allow additional upgrades to be implemented to prevent further misuse of the platform.
“Recently, we detected a coordinated effort by Lazarus group to misuse our defi services. At the same time, we’ve noticed an increase in competitive attacks aiming to undermine our work,” OKX added.
The exchange team also noted that its wallet services will remain available to all customers, but the ability to create new wallets is suspended in certain markets.
The exchange’s decision followed a Bloomberg article dated March 11, which indicated that EU regulators are closely examining OKX services related to decentralized trading and non-custodial asset storage.
According to journalists, officials are interested in possible non-compliance of the exchange’s services with the provisions of the EU-wide Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation.
OKX to pay $500 million for violating AML laws
The US Department of Justice claims concern a subsidiary of the exchange
Bybit CEO Ben Zhou reported back on March 4 that about $100 million in stolen assets had passed through OKX’s Web3 services.
Although the FBI urged crypto firms to block addresses and transactions of Bybit hackers back in late February, Lazarus had fully laundered the stolen assets by March 4, as reported by analysts at the Arkham Intelligence platform.
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