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Today's Top Crypto Headlines:
OKX Fined $505M | EVM Blamed for Hack | Bybit Hacker Swaps $3.64M and more...
King Fatrick Gil Añasco
February 25, 2025
Good Morning Crypto Enthusiasts!
Glad to have you back for another edition of the UseTheBitcoin.com newsletter.
OKX Fined $505M: OKX pleaded guilty to operating an unlicensed money-transmitting business, agreeing to pay $505M in penalties.
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Back Blames EVM for Hack: Adam Back blamed Ethereum’s EVM for the $1.4B Bybit hack, citing security flaws.
💡Feature of the Day - Bybit Hacker Swaps $3.64M: The Bybit hacker converted stolen ETH to DAI via Uniswap and non-KYC platforms.
All this and more in today’s headlines!
📰 News Highlights:
OKX’s Aux Cayes FinTech Co. Ltd pleaded guilty to operating an unlicensed money-transmitting business in violation of US Anti-Money Laundering laws.
We cooperated with the US Dept of Justice in their thorough investigation of our business. We had a small percentage of customers who were able to use our international services due to historical compliance gaps. Today our compliance controls are among the leading in the… x.com/i/web/status/1…
— OKX (@okx)
9:14 PM • Feb 24, 2025
To settle the charges, the Seychelles-based crypto exchange agreed to pay over $500 million, including $84 million in penalties and forfeiting $421 million in fees from mostly institutional clients.
Despite these breaches occurring between 2018 and 2024, OKX stated that only a small percentage of its user base was affected and that none of those customers remain on the platform today.
We will continue to mature our compliance operations and continue to work closely with global regulators. Our vision is to make OKX the gold standard of global compliance at scale across different markets and their respective regulatory bodies. I am proud of our company.
— Star (@star_okx)
9:21 PM • Feb 24, 2025
US authorities criticized OKX for facilitating over $5 billion in suspicious transactions and even advising users on bypassing regulations.
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The Bybit hack has reignited debates between Bitcoin and Ethereum supporters, with Adam Back attributing the exploit to flaws in the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM).
It's .eth / EVM tech, complex, fragile, blind-signed, un-securable - they've been losing $billions per year for years straight, so no one cares. Just 2025 off to a fast start. Zero days since 9 figure loss on eth toggled again. (10 figure lump this time).
— Adam Back (@adam3us)
9:01 AM • Feb 22, 2025
The Blockstream co-founder argued that EVM’s complexity and security vulnerabilities contribute to repeated hacks, including the recent $1.4 billion Bybit breach.
people are misunderstanding critique of repeated EVM hacks, latest & largest ByBit $1.4b. missing the point: EVM can go to ZERO, no one cares! but MSM & bystanders are confused, problem is the EVM dumpster fire hurts ecosystem credibility, which unfairly bleeds over to #bitcoin
— Adam Back (@adam3us)
8:28 PM • Feb 23, 2025
According to Back, Bitcoin’s design is inherently safer, while Ethereum’s structure makes hardware wallet verification ineffective.
this meme is a F FANTASTIC illustration of the EVM mis-design root cause of the @Bybit_Official ETH wallet hack and half a dozen other blind-sign rooted hacks going back. picture says 1000 words! @high_byte well done ser!
— Adam Back (@adam3us)
5:18 AM • Feb 24, 2025
However, many in the crypto community pushed back, suggesting the attack stemmed from weaknesses in operational security rather than EVM flaws.
#bitcoin there is no second best. not just a slogan.
another day another EVM complexity rooted $1bil+fail.
— Adam Back (@adam3us)
1:52 PM • Feb 24, 2025
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💡 Feature of the Day:
Addresses linked to the Bybit hack have been actively swapping stolen ETH for DAI on decentralized exchanges, taking advantage of the stablecoin’s lack of a freeze function.
The Bybit exploiter is using multiple dex including @okx dex to swap the $ETH for $DAI !
Exploiter send $3.64M $ETH to another address and is now exchanging $DAI back and forth and transfer $DAI out.
scan.0xscope.com/address/0x403b…
— lmk.fun 🦜 (Prev. Scopescan) (@lmkfun)
10:12 AM • Feb 24, 2025
Blockchain data shows the hacker used platforms like Uniswap and Sky to convert millions in stolen funds before splitting the DAI across multiple wallets.
At this point is really not about bybit or any entity, it's about our general approach towards hackers as an industry, really hope that @exch can reconsider and help us to block funds outflowing from them. We are also getting help from Interpool and international regulatory… x.com/i/web/status/1…
— Ben Zhou (@benbybit)
4:32 AM • Feb 23, 2025
Some funds were later sent to eXch, a non-KYC exchange that has refused to freeze assets linked to the hack.
While most exchanges assisted Bybit in freezing hacker-controlled accounts, eXch resisted cooperation, citing prior disputes with Bybit.
We just froze 181k USDt connected to the ByBit hack.
Might not be much but it's honest work.
We keep monitoring.
Kudos to @zachxbt— Paolo Ardoino 🤖 (@paoloardoino)
1:15 PM • Feb 22, 2025
Blockchain investigator ZachXBT identified overlapping wallet activity between the Bybit breach and previous hacks on Phemex, BingX, and Poloniex.
Today when laundering funds for the Bybit Hack the Poloniex hack was also linked on-chain in consolidation address 0x15ec.
This now shows the same entity is tied to four different hacks (Bybit, Poloniex, Phemex, BingX)
Overlap
0x15ec300a4895a86322f1a27dd9ba0b9f8297e65dBybit… x.com/i/web/status/1…
— ZachXBT (@zachxbt)
12:39 PM • Feb 24, 2025
😂 Crypto Meme of the Day:
Meme of the day provided by @coinsauce
And that’s it for this today.
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See you all tomorrow’s edition!
Jonathan Gibson
UseTheBitcoin.com