Wallet Linked to Nomad Bridge Hack Transfers $36M in Ether to Tornado Cash
Date: 2024-08-09 Author: Gabriel Deangelo Categories: BUSINESS
A cryptocurrency wallet implicated in the $200 million Nomad Bridge hack in 2022 recently transferred 14,500 Ether (ETH), worth about $35.5 million at current prices, to the sanctioned Tornado Cash mixing service. According to blockchain security firm PeckShield, the transfer was made several days after the wallet was funded.
Data from Arkham Intelligence shows that the wallet was funded on Monday with $39.75 million in the stablecoin DAI from an address labeled "Nomad Bridge Exploiter." The resulting DAI was exchanged for Ether (ETH) using the CoW trading protocol in $2 million tranches before a series of transactions were sent to Tornado Cash on Thursday.
Tornado Cash is a tool used to anonymize transactions by spreading transfers across multiple wallets over a period of time. The service was sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) in 2022.
The Nomad bridge hack in 2022 resulted in the loss of $200 million in cryptocurrency. The attackers were able to forge transactions, tricking the bridge into allowing them to withdraw assets that did not belong to them. Cryptocurrency bridges, which are methods of transferring assets from one blockchain network to another, have become a prime target for hackers due to the use of new technology. The same month that Nomad was hacked, the Ronin bridge suffered an even larger hack worth $625 million.
Crystal Intelligence reports that $19 billion worth of cryptocurrency has been lost to hacking since 2011. In February alone, more than $67 million was lost to hacks and exploits, according to a report from Immunefi.
The cryptocurrency world is facing growing threats, with hacking attacks linked to North Korea becoming a growing concern, according to legal experts. Protecting digital assets requires constantly improving security technologies and careful monitoring of new attack vectors.
The move of Ethereum to Tornado Cash thus once again draws attention to the security concerns of cryptocurrency bridges and efforts to anonymize transactions.
