The percentage that Johnny Lyu mentioned corresponds to around USD 236 million. Blockchain tracking and court support have allowed KuCoin to recover funds.
Johnny Lyu reported that KuCoin recently recovered around 84% of the funds in Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH). The CEO of the cryptocurrency exchange said that hackers had stolen that money during an attack in late September.
Lyu wrote on his Twitter account about the recovery of most of the funds. Similarly, the exchange’s executive said that several mechanisms made this possible. He mentioned “blockchain tracking, contract update, and judicial recovery.”
Furthermore, the CEO of KuCoin noted that they have already resumed their operations with more than 170 listed tokens. He announced that they will activate another list before November 22nd.
In recent days, KuCoin restarted its operations after a hack that it had suffered, resuming deposits and withdrawals of Bitcoin, Ether, and the stablecoin Tether.
At first, they estimated losses of around USD 150 million, but the theft figure exceeded USD 280 million. The new percentage that they recovered exceeds what Lyu had declared in recent days, according to calculations by the executive himself.
Previously, the company’s representative had stated that they had managed to recover around USD 204 million, equivalent to just over 70% of what the hackers stole. The new figure would be around USD 236 million.
Lyu did not elaborate on the efforts of the authorities or the company itself to recover the funds. However, they clarified that they will make all the information available to the public once the case is closed.
“As the security forces request, we will release all the details once the case is closed,” said Johnny Lyu.
Movements After Hack Attack Against KuCoin
Following the hack attack against KuCoin, blockchain tracking firm Elliptic published some of its findings on the movements of the stolen funds. According to their research, the hackers used different decentralized finance (DeFi) platforms to get rid of the stolen cryptocurrencies.
According to Elliptic, on September 29th, just days after the robbery, the attackers had already managed to trade more than USD 13 million. They conducted those transactions through Uniswap, Kyber Network, DEX.AG, and Tokenlon.
During the first week of October, Lyu himself said that there was “substantial evidence” of the identity of the hackers who attacked KuCoin. The executive stated that the exchange was working closely with authorities to resolve the case. At the time, he stated that they had recovered the first USD 204 million of the total amount stolen.
In late September, KuCoin launched a program called Safeguard. With it, they have the objective of protecting users against incidents that affect the security of the website, together with more than a dozen companies.
These kinds of incidents make those who operate cryptocurrency exchanges aware of the need to improve their security. Blockchain technology and the cooperation with security forces have allowed these companies to overcome hack attacks.
By Alexander Salazar
