In the ongoing market downturn, crypto hackers have seized the opportunity to acquire heavily discounted Ether using previously stolen funds. On August 5, a significant transaction occurred involving 16,892 ETH purchased with cryptocurrency funds linked to a hack on the Nomad bridge in August 2022.

This activity comes at a time when Ether’s value plummeted by over 20%, dropping from approximately $2,760 to $2,172 within a 12-hour span. The cryptocurrency is currently trading around $2,331, down by more than 24% in the past seven days.

Funds from Nomad Bridge Hack

The Nomad bridge hacker utilized 39.75 million DAI of stolen tokens to purchase 16,892 ETH. Following this substantial acquisition, the hacker began transferring the stolen funds to the crypto mixer Tornado Cash. Crypto mixers like Tornado Cash are commonly used by hackers to obscure the origins of their funds, making on-chain traceability challenging and often rendering the stolen assets irretrievable.

PeckShield revealed that the Nomad exploiter also sent 17.75 ETH to an intermediary Ethereum address. At the time of writing, the hacker had successfully moved 2,400 ETH, equivalent to $7 million, to Tornado Cash.

The Nomad Bridge Hack occurred in August 2022, resulting in the loss of $190 million worth of cryptocurrency. The hack exploited a vulnerability in bridge’s smart contract, specifically in the Replica contract, which is responsible for validating messages in a Merkle tree structure.

Pancake Bunny Hackers Active

In a related development, funds stolen during the Pancake Bunny hack three years ago are also being moved amidst the ongoing market volatility. The Pancake Bunny hacker, aiming to capitalize on lower cryptocurrency prices, exchanged their stolen DAI tokens for ETH. However, blockchain investigator Officer CIA reported that the hacker mistakenly sent 3.6 million DAI to a DAI stablecoin address.

Pancake Bunny, a decentralized finance protocol operating on the BNB Smart Chain, fell victim to a flash loan attack in 2021. On July 8, the Pancake Bunny hacker managed to funnel $2.9 million worth of Ether through Tornado Cash, further complicating efforts to trace and recover the stolen assets.

Meanwhile, Bitcoin is trading around $52,500, down by more than 13% in the last 24 hours. Thebroader crypto market has seen a blood bath recently, plummeting by around 17%.

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