$42 million in pocket: How stolen funds from the GMX exchange were laundered
After assets were stolen, they were passed through decentralized exchanges and cross-chain bridges to be converted into ETH
11.07.2025
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On July 9, 2025, decentralized exchange GMX lost $42 million in assets due to a vulnerability in a smart contract. GetBlock AML Research shows how the attacker laundered the stolen funds.
The reason for the hack
The attacker exploited several flaws in GMX’s smart contract at once to open large short positions and manipulate the average value of all open short positions. These actions allowed him to make significant profits by redeeming open positions.
Fund flows
After conducting the attack, the hacker transferred the stolen assets to the original address on the Arbitrum network: 0xdf3340a436c27655ba62f828281565c9925c3a5221.
|
Assets stolen from GMX |
|
|
10 548 626,3 |
Legacy Frax Dollar (FRAX) |
|
9 751 811,5 |
USDC |
|
1 343 601,9 |
USDT |
|
1 338 385,1 |
DAI |
|
187 343,4 |
USDC (bridged) |
|
65 479,2 |
UNI |
|
23 800,2 |
LINK |
|
3 205,5 |
WETH |
|
88,1734 |
WBTC |
|
Total: $42,2 million at the time of the hack |
|
The cryptocurrency was then transferred to an intermediate address: 0x99cdeb84064c2bc63de0cea7c6978e272d0f2dae, which was used to interact with decentralized exchanges (CoW Swap, Across Protocol, Stargate Finance, Mayan Finance) and cross-chain bridges to convert assets into ETH.
Converting assets to ETH using decentralized exchanges and cross-chain bridges. Visualization: MistTrack
The resulting 11 700 ETH were accumulated at the address: 0x6acc60b11217a1fd0e68b0ecaee7122d34a784c1. The hacker then distributed the coins to four new addresses:
- 0xa33fcbe3b84fb8393690d1e994b6a6adc256d8a3: 3000 ETH
- 0xe9ad5a0f2697a3cf75ffa7328bda93dbaef7f7e7: 3000 ETH
- 0x69c965e164fa60e37a851aa5cd82b13ae39c1d95: 3000 ETH
- 0x639cd2fc24ec06be64aaf94eb89392bea98a6605: 2700 ETH
Distribution of ETH to new addresses. Visualization: MistTrack
The original address (0xdf3340a436c27655ba62f8281565c9925c3a5221) still holds 10 494 796 Legacy Frax Dollar (FRAX).
Refund possible
Immediately after the hack, the GMX team approached the hacker with an offer to return 90% of the stolen assets and keep 10% as a reward. Two days later, the hacker replied that he would return the funds, but would do so “later”.
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