The individual behind the Bitget hack has reportedly converted stolen Ethereum holdings into Bitcoin, complicating recovery efforts, while a request to freeze the funds on THORChain was turne
The individual behind the Bitget hack has reportedly converted stolen Ethereum holdings into Bitcoin, complicating recovery efforts, while a request to freeze the funds on THORChain was turned down. The two developments together point to a deliberate laundering strategy that exploits the structural limits of decentralized infrastructure.
According to reports circulating in the crypto security community, the Bitget hacker moved stolen funds by swapping Ethereum for Bitcoin. No specific transaction hash, wallet address, or confirmed token amount has been independently verified in the available evidence, and all details should be treated as attributed rather than confirmed.
The direction of the swap matters operationally. Bitcoin and Ethereum operate on separate chains, meaning a cross-asset move severs the on-chain trail that investigators would follow if monitoring a single network. Any subsequent tracing effort requires coordinating across two independent block explorers and two sets of blockchain data.
A plea to freeze the funds was reportedly submitted to THORChain and turned down. No formal statement or named respondent from THORChain has been provided in the available brief, so the precise reasoning behind the refusal remains unconfirmed.
THORChain is a decentralized cross-chain liquidity protocol. Unlike centralized exchanges, which can unilaterally suspend withdrawals or flag addresses at the request of law enforcement or victims, decentralized protocols typically execute transactions according to code without a central party holding override authority. The ability to comply with a freeze request depends entirely on how a given protocol is governed and whether its node operators choose to act collectively.
The reported refusal does not necessarily reflect bad intent on THORChain's part; it may simply reflect the protocol's architecture. However, the outcome is the same for investigators: the funds moved without interruption.
Cross-asset swaps through decentralized protocols are a recognized pattern in post-hack fund movement. Converting Ethereum to Bitcoin and routing the transaction through a protocol that declined to freeze assets places the funds in a position that is harder, though not impossible, to trace. On-chain forensics firms can still follow the money across chains, but the process is slower and the window for intervention narrows with each additional hop.
The critical next data points to watch are any verified on-chain transaction records linking the Bitget exploit wallets to a THORChain swap pool, an official statement from THORChain's node operators or core contributors clarifying the freeze request, and any recovery or law-enforcement action from Bitget itself. Until those are available, the confirmed scope of this incident remains limited to what the initial reports describe.
Additional source references: source document 1, source document 2.
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial or investment advice. Cryptocurrency and digital asset markets carry significant risk. Always do your own research before making decisions.
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