‘The largest crypto theft of all time’: Historic $1.4 billion Bybit hack shocks world of digital assets

Bybit's massive hack and loss of over $1.4 billion in crypto assets shook the world of digital assets on Friday, triggering multiple reactions."This makes it the largest crypto theft of all time, by some margin," Elliptic co-founder and Chief Scientist Tom Robinson told The Block. "The next largest crypto theft would be the $611 million stolen from Poly Network in 2021. In fact it may even be the largest single theft of all time. We've labelled the thief's addresses in our software, to help to prevent these funds from being cashed-out through other exchanges."On Friday, hackers appeared to steal more than $1.4 billion in ETH from Bybit’s cold wallet, the exchange confirmed. It seems the hacker tricked Bybit’s ETH cold wallet signers into approving a malicious transaction to gain control of the wallet surreptitiously. The company's CEO took to social media to reassure the public. "Bybit is Solvent even if this hack loss is not recovered, all of clients assets are 1 to 1 backed, we can cover the loss," Bybit CEO Ben Zhou posted to X.Flashbots strategy lead Hasu also took to X to say that the hack would not lead to the demise of Bybit."If you want my serious take, Bybit has way more than 1.4 billion of revenue per year," Hasu wrote. "They are good for the money and will make all customers whole. It doesn't matter for ETH because Bybit will honor customers's ETH liabilities and buy back the assets on open market."Nonetheless, the amount taken in the attack on Friday was astronomical, even by cryptocurrency standards.Last May, the Japanese cryptocurrency exchange DMM Bitcoin suffered the largest crypto hack of 2024 when it lost over 4,500 BTC, valued at over $300 million at the time. FTX lost $477 million in 2022.Binance founder and former CEO Changpeng Zhao, or CZ, offered assistance in reply to one of Bybit CEO's many posts relaying information related to the hack. "Not an easy situation to deal with. Might suggest to halt all withdrawals for a bit as a standard security precaution. Will provide any assistance if needed."Meanwhile, Arkham Intelligence offered a bounty to track down whoever was responsible for the hack."We’ve created and funded a bounty to help identify the person or organization behind today’s [over] $1 billion Bybit hack," the firm posted to X. "Submissions to this bounty will be shared with the Bybit team to support their investigation. Reward: 50,000 ARKM.""This Bybit hack really sucks," trader Julius Stark posted to X. "As pro trader there isn’t a better trading platform with more accurate data and better UI. They are one of the good guys."Co-founder and CEO of Solana swap platform Titan told The Block: "The Bybit hack shows how important the human component of approving transactions is. If humans cannot easily inspect a proposed transaction in a multi-sig, people eventually approve anything that comes through.""Given the scale of the alleged exploit, this breach raises serious concerns regarding centralized exchange security and the evolving threat landscape in web3," a CertiK spokesperson told The Block. CertiK is a digital assets auditing backed by Sequoia Capital, Tiger Global and Goldman Sachs.Disclaimer: The Block is an independent media outlet that delivers news, research, and data. As of November 2023, Foresight Ventures is a majority investor of The Block. Foresight Ventures invests in other companies in the crypto space. Crypto exchange Bitget is an anchor LP for Foresight Ventures. The Block continues to operate independently to deliver objective, impactful, and timely information about the crypto industry. Here are our current financial disclosures.© 2025 The Block. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.