Crypto
Home›Crypto›Market Structure›Bitget hacker shifts part of loot into Zcash’s Ironwoo…
Bitget hacker shifts part of loot into Zcash’s Ironwood privacy pool
The move involves about 2,700 ZEC, worth roughly $3.8 million, deposited into Zcash’s Ironwood shielded pool.
On-chain investigator ZachXBT said the hacker behind Bitget’s $387.5 million heist has begun moving funds into Zcash’s shielded Ironwood pool, a privacy feature that encrypts the sender, receiver, and amount once deposited. Ironwood is a Zcash pool designed to obscure transfers after they enter the shielded system, though investigators can still see coins moving in and out.
ZachXBT reported that the attacker has placed about 2,700 ZEC, roughly $3.8 million, into Ironwood, which is about one-seventh of the ZEC value stolen, based on on-chain tracking. The deposit comes after investigators said Near Intents turned swaps away, leaving the attacker looking for other ways to conceal remaining funds.
Zcash’s Ironwood pool launched July 28 to replace an older pool, Orchard, after a researcher identified a bug that could have enabled counterfeit coin printing. Bitget CEO Gracy Chen previously said the attacker’s IP addresses and patterns match North Korean hackers, and blockchain analytics firm Elliptic described the link as highly likely.
Elliptic also ranked the Bitget theft as the largest suspected North Korean theft of 2026, pushing the year’s suspected total past $1 billion. The heist began Sept. 24, after Bitget flagged unauthorized transfers out of its hot wallet.