Lazarus Group Launders Bybit Hack via Meme Coins on Pump.fun

On-chain detective ZachXBT has uncovered a sophisticated money laundering operation involving the Bybit hack, which occurred earlier this month. The hacker, believed to be associated with the North Korean Lazarus Group, has been using the issuance and trading of meme coins on the pump.fun platform to launder the stolen funds.

The hacker initially received $1.08 million in USDC from the Bybit hack event and transferred it to the Solana network. The funds were then further cross-chained to two addresses on the Binance Smart Chain (BSC) network, where they were dispersed to over 30 addresses through programmatic operations. The money launderer then consolidated the funds to a single address and exchanged the received SOL for meme coins.

ZachXBT publicly disclosed over 920 addresses that received funds from the Bybit hack, including the addresses associated with the money launderer. The detective found that the launderer had issued meme coins through the pump.fun platform to facilitate the laundering process. For security reasons, specific wallet addresses were not disclosed, and multiple analytics tools were requested to remove related interfaces.

The use of meme coins and the pump.fun platform for money laundering highlights the growing sophistication of cybercriminals in exploiting the cryptocurrency ecosystem. As the crypto market continues to grow, so too will the need for robust security measures and regulatory oversight to prevent and detect such activities.