A wallet linked to the suspected FTX hacker swapped ~$49M of stablecoins for ether, taking its haul to 228,523 ETH and becoming the 35th largest ETH holder
The hacker who raided Sam Bankman-Fried's collapsed crypto exchange FTX is now one of the world's biggest holders of the token Ether.
BloombergSidhartha Shukla
Context & Ripple Effects
FTX’s collapse had already driven unusually large withdrawals from centralized exchanges, including ether and stablecoins, before this wallet’s conversion became visible. Later reporting tied the exchange’s unauthorized transfers to losses of roughly $415M–$432M, making the swap an early on-chain marker of a much larger theft trail.
Subsequent tracing showed the stolen assets moving again in 2023 and reaching decentralized venues, including THORSwap’s move to maintenance mode after illicit conversion activity. That progression makes the wallet’s growing ether balance relevant not only to FTX’s losses but to the infrastructure used to move them.
First-order effects
The wallet shifts roughly $49M from stablecoins into ether, concentrating more of the suspected theft proceeds in ETH and making its portfolio more exposed to ether’s price movements.
Decentralized trading venues and blockchain-monitoring firms gain a clear incentive to identify and interrupt conversion routes, as later activity showed when THORSwap restricted access after funds linked to the hack were exchanged.
Large, traceable swaps turn the suspected hacker’s wallet into a market-facing liability: any effort to convert or disperse its ETH increases the opportunity for monitoring firms and counterparties to flag the flow.
Third-order effects
If decentralized venues repeatedly become conversion paths for identified theft proceeds, transaction-screening and emergency access controls are likely to become a more consequential part of their operating model, despite their open-access design.
The FTX case points to crypto-market legitimacy increasingly depending on whether stolen assets can be traced and constrained after an exchange failure, rather than solely on whether the original breach is stopped.
The trend: High-profile exchange failures are extending the crypto legitimacy gap from custody failures into the traceability and containment of stolen assets across decentralized markets.
#PeckShieldAlert FTX Accounts Drainer has swapped 48.27M $DAI (~$48.36M) to 37.57k $ETH (~$47.69M) on Ethereum Arbitrary loss: -$671,424.25 FTX Accounts Drainer currently holds 228,523.83 $ETH (~$288M) and makes the address become the 35th largest holder of ETH https://twitter.co…
The FTX exploiter, who has been dumping all other drained assets for ETH, is now one of the largest holders in the world, with 228,523 ETH ($284.82m) currently in their wallet. Everyone should keep an extremely close eye on what happens next... https://twitter.com/...
#PeckShieldAlert FTX Accounts Drainer 10 has bridged ~2,700 $ETH via Anyswap from BSC to ETH & transferred 2,697.38 $ETH ($3.3M) to FTX Accounts Drainer 1 FTX Accounts Drainer currently holds 235,392.44 $ETH (~$209.8M) & makes the address become the 34th largest holder of ETH htt…
The great thing about crypto is you can follow the money in real-time as it goes through accounts called “ftx accounts drainer” and “cumsock dot eth” https://etherscan.io/... https://twitter.com/...
#PeckShieldAlert In addition, FTX Accounts Drainer 9 has bridged ~2,000 $ETH via Anyswap from BSC to ETH and swapped ~2.7M $USDT for ~2,173 $ETH on Cow Protocol and then transferred 4,171.22 $ETH ($5.1M) to FTX Accounts Drainer 1 FTX Accounts Drainer 1: 235.4k $ETH & 8.2k $PAXG h…
Serious question. The FTX drainer wallet is now the 36th largest holder of ETH. This much eth exceeds the anonymonity set of @TornadoCash.👀 Other than @kamikaz_ETH's idea, what is the point of converting funds to ETH when it can be tracked on chain & never cashed out? Thoughts? h…
No trade to be taken from this, just sharing information. FTX accounts drainer is swapping their BNB for ETH the last 45 minutes. https://twitter.com/...
FTX Exploiter is TWAPing $48 million DAI into ETH in $3 million DAI chunks ahhh i'm frontrunningggg https://explorer.cow.fi/... https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/...
#CertiKSkynetAlert 🚨 We have seen more movements of funds into FTX Wallet Drainer 1 (0x59AB) 0x59AB on BSC swapped ~34k BNB for ETH. EOA 0x29BD & 0x961BA receive the swapped ETH which is bridged to Ethereum. Both wallets transfer ~6.8k ETH into 0x59AB Stay vigilant! https://twitt…
1 hour ago, FTX Account Drainer has swapped a total of 34k $BNB for 4,5K $ETH and 3M $BUSD. Overall, its portfolio sits at $322M, with 87.5% in $ETH. https://twitter.com/...
Security doesn't exist on PoS if you can hack or exploit software to become the largest holder of the token. (Happening right now with Ethereum) You can't hack or exploit your way to 51% on PoW. This is why energy backed money matters. https://twitter.com/...
FTX Accounts Drainer is the 35th holder of $ETH and the 10th holder of $BNB. He holds 228,524 $ETH($288M) and 108,454 $BNB($30M). 1.🧵 What will he do next? https://twitter.com/...
FTX high profile rugger living large on Ethereum politicians will cry for justice censor the rugger, censor the chain! oh wait... the chain can indeed be censored what's the point of this Blockchain again? Ethereum should rename to “slow excel” one and the same now 🦦 https://twit…
The FTX Accounts Drainer still holds over 74,000 BNB on the BSC Network. In the past 2 hours, the attacker has bridged over 34,000 BNB equivalent back to the ETH network to their main account, while avoiding blacklisting. Their method for transferring the BNB is as follows: https…