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US judge grants Bybit expedited discovery in $1.5B North Korea hack case
Bybit said only 9.8% of the stolen assets remained traceable, including about $75.5 million in frozen or recovered funds tied to identifiable wallets.
A U.S. federal judge has backed crypto exchange Bybit’s attempt to track assets stolen in a $1.5 billion, North Korea-linked hack, granting the exchange expedited discovery, according to newly unsealed court records summarized by Cointelegraph.
Bybit filed a lawsuit under seal on June 18 against North Korea, its Reconnaissance General Bureau, the Lazarus Group and 20 unidentified defendants. The court granted expedited discovery on June 19, and the authority allows Bybit to seek account-holder identities, balances and transaction histories from platforms with U.S. operations, Cointelegraph reported.
In its complaint, Bybit alleged some traceable assets reached exchanges operating or maintaining infrastructure in the U.S. Bybit also obtained a temporary restraining order on June 19 to prevent unidentified defendants from transferring certain traceable assets, which the court renewed on July 16 and partially granted as part of a preliminary injunction request on July 30. Some exhibits and other records remain sealed.
Bybit said in its June 18 filing that 90.2% of the stolen assets had become untraceable after moving through mixers, cross-chain bridges and over-the-counter dealers, leaving 9.8% traced to identifiable wallets. Cointelegraph reported that the traced portion included 5.3% of the total, about $75.5 million, that had been frozen or recovered, and that the figures represented a sharp change from more than a year earlier, when Bybit’s CEO said 68.57% remained traceable.