FTX Account Drainer Moves 60,000 ETH Since Late September

In a fresh wave of money transfers, the notorious FTX account drainer has caused significant disruption in the crypto community by moving a total of 60,000 ETH from 4 wallet addresses since late September.

As per reports, the wallets that just a few days ago held close to 200K ETH now have a balance of merely 125K ETH.

FTX Drainer Moving Funds

Earlier today, Certik , a blockchain sleuth, highlighted that an FTX drainer wallet transferred 7,500 ETH (equivalent to $12.3 million) to EOA 0x395d9. However, this is just one of the many transactions involving the FTX drainer since late September.

#CertiKSkynet 🚨

The FTX Drainer has transferred 7,500 ETH (~$12.3m) to EOA 0x395d9.

Stay Vigilant!

— CertiK (@CertiK) October 5, 2023

PeckShield has followed the transactions since Sept. 30 and reported several movements around the FTX drainer. The on-chain sleuth mentioned that the exploiter had moved 5,625 ETH “and bridged them out through BTC via Thorchain.”

#PeckShield #FTX exploiter has transferred 5,625 $ETH (~$9.28M) out and bridged them to #BTC via #thorchain pic.twitter.com/QJ5JYwooFj

— PeckShield (@PeckShield) October 4, 2023

The reports indicate that the drainer transferred a whopping 15,000 ETH, approximately $24.75 million, and exchanged it for Bitcoin through THORChain, a decentralized liquidity protocol.

Lookonchain has also been following the latest spree of funds movement associated with FTX accounts drainer. On Sept. 30, the drainer started with a series of transactions, moving 5K ETH worth around $8.37 million in just 3 hours. At the time of Lookonchain’s tweet, the drainer had 180.7K ETH held in about 13 addresses as of Sept. 30.

Later, on Oct. 1, Lookonchain reported more activities, moving another 7,500 ETH. The drainer wallets had moved 22.5K ETH worth $38 million within a 2-day duration as of Oct 1.

However, the most recent reports indicate that the exploiter wallet has moved a cumulative 60,000 ETH since Sept. 30 via four different addresses and now holds a staggering 125,735 ETH across nine addresses.

The FTX Heist

One of these wallets, 0x59ABf, is marked as an FTX account drainer, having been reported originally by ZackXBT, another trusted blockchain sleuth, late in 2022. Etherscan data indicates this address began activity about 327 days ago, with the initial movement of 9,500 ETH. This was during the largest FTX heist, where attackers stole hundreds of millions of ETH starting November 11, 2022.

The current FTX CEO, John J. Ray III, the Restructuring Officer of FTX, later mentioned that both the global and U.S. FTX networks suffered large hacks, losing $323 million and $90 million, respectively.

The perpetrators who were never identified held large sums of Ethereum. There have been inside jokes that SBF is behind the attacks, with some noting that the recent movements are aimed at generating funds to pay for legal expenditures for his ongoing case.