Live data from Hacker News

FTX faces potential hack, sees mysterious outflows totaling more than $600M

coindesk.com

541–550 of 890 posts

Re: FTX faces potential hack, sees mysterious outflows totaling more than $600M

#541
The hacker has spent the last 11 hours slowky and incrementally converting all the various tokens they got to ETH. They've been using a variety of different defi exchange and have eaten large slippage fees, at least once over 5M lost in slippage.

We're not seeing any else, e.g. laundering through another exchange, splitting into different accounts, automating the liquidation of tokens to ETH, off loading ETH into a cold wallet etc.

The on chain activity makes this look like an individual who did not prepare extensively before doing this or doesn't have the skills to use automation/operational best practices

EDIT: first outflows from 0x59abf3837fa962d6853b4cc0a19513aa031fd32b have started, they still haven't liquidated all their PAXG, a stable coin pegged to gold, unclear if it's freezable.

They were able to liquidate all of their USDT except 4M on avalanche, and all of their usdc both of which can be frozen. Dai is a usd pegged stable coin that can't be frozen, they have nearly 1% of it. Note that Dai is heavily exposed to USDC so authorities could pressure USDC to destroy Dai

Re: FTX faces potential hack, sees mysterious outflows totaling more than $600M

#542

This last week has been a rollercoaster. I've been in crypto since a long time ago and have seen quite a bit, but this FTX implosion takes the crown. And to be honest, I don't think its over.

If you believe there is more to come and this isn’t over, are you still holding crypto?

I've been in cryptocurrencies/blockchain since 2012. I "missed" the BTC boat and got into ETH early. I'm of the thought that CeFi services like Ftx, Nexo, Coinbase and similar are stupid. The only thing that should exist is simple Exchanges between Fiat and cryptocurrency. But everything else is just a scam IMHO. Why would you do a CeFi in crypto , when theres more TAM in doing it normal FIAT? Because you want to Avoid regulation and scrutiny.

Anyways, through all this saga, I see ETH is still at $1200, which has held pretty well. I think the right price is around $600, how it was on Nov 2020, before all speculation. The rest of the price is just people playing around. But that's not what ETH is for, and these high prices are hurting it's real goal.

I'm definitely still holding crypto. Mostly ETH, because I believe in the core technology. I've done some smart contracts and have a couple ideas for the future.

But man, I surely hope all cryptos crash and burn this time, so that speculators stop polluting the technology.

Re: FTX faces potential hack, sees mysterious outflows totaling more than $600M

#543
post #436

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that they said they would pay 8% interest on your funds. Which I guess makes it quite attractive. A discord server I was on in the spring had people offering advice on how to get this... I just assumed it was a scam, perhaps other people weren't so cautious.

I mean it should be obvious that anyone who offers 8% interest has to do some high-risk stuff with your funds, right?

> I mean it should be obvious that anyone who offers 8% interest has to do some high-risk stuff with your funds, right?

That wouldn't be obvious at all to me; the lowest-risk investment in my country (federal government bonds) is currently offering over 13% interest (https://www.tesourodireto.com.br/titulos/precos-e-taxas.htm).

Re: FTX faces potential hack, sees mysterious outflows totaling more than $600M

#544

FTX is just an exchange right? Any sensible person only puts funds into an exchange that they want to trade. Not your keys, not your crypto.

“Not your keys, not your crypto” is one of the most out of touch axioms in the crypto space (and that’s really saying something).

See: the vast majority of the population (even within crypto) that can’t figure out how to setup a wallet in the first place. Then, if you get that far, you can join the hordes of people that lose access to it, dig through garbage dumps for a laptop, have malware that inspects the clipboard and replaces addresses, make a wrong click in Metamask and get cleaned out, etc, etc, etc.

Re: FTX faces potential hack, sees mysterious outflows totaling more than $600M

#545
post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds like a great insider action to cover the fraud and mismanagement: leak the keys to the kingdom in a dark web forum, so that in the resulting commotion you can blame the hackers who had access all along and obviously made your platform fail. Something, anything that your lawyers can grasp at.

I doubt that Bankman would have sanctioned that though, since he’s already admitted to malfeasance. An insider could leak the keys and arrange for a cut of the proceeds, was my line of thinking.

Bankman would have not sanctioned it because he's got much more to lose the greater the hole is. Someone around Bankman though, that has no substantial stake in FTX and suddenly realizes he was an accessory to financial fraud, has strong incentives to burn the house down.

From a secure and audited system where only a handful of people had access and the actions of each are recorded (if we dismiss Bankman's "backdoor" for a moment), all of a sudden we have a system that was wide open to the world and raided exactly after the financial collapse. As it's easy to see, your Honor, the hackers were in the system all along, forging the so called audit trail allegedly incriminating my client; when the game was up, they pounced.

Re: FTX faces potential hack, sees mysterious outflows totaling more than $600M

#546

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I saw an update on coindesk that they confirmed it was a hack on their official telegram channel? What a dumpster fire. But let's be honest, I think retail investors weren't getting anything back anyways. Probably only impacts creditors

Retail investors are creditors right? Though I guess you mean only the larger creditors. I think the bigger difference is that bankruptcy proceedings take a long time and to a retail investor ‘you might get some money back in N years’ isn’t so different from ‘you get nothing’.

I just had that realization that I'm sure so many have already had.. In a bankruptcy, we really are creditors.. but we're not Creditors, and won't get our money back until big C's have had all they want.

Re: FTX faces potential hack, sees mysterious outflows totaling more than $600M

#547

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Energy which is used to mindlessly calculate dumb hashes, trillions of which are discarded every second for the winning 'hash'. Proof of Work is basically lottery, but which consumes energy instead of tickets.

Not a miner. I do use a computer to calculate dumb stuff all the time for entertainment purposes. I mean… Cyberpunk 2077 could run acceptably on an integrated 65W APU but instead I chose to crank everything on max with ray tracing through a 4090 just to see some dumb frames on a screen that are discarded at a hundred per second. And I don’t ever remember having to ask permission to use the kW h I’m paying for.

Calculating hashes in a loop is dumb, cyberpunk is a pretty complex piece of code which also utilises GPU aspects like ray tracing,

Re: FTX faces potential hack, sees mysterious outflows totaling more than $600M

#548
post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was my first thought. Not FTX related, but I just got another email from Coinbase reassuring me that they’re not gonna use customer funds without permission. I have in the past moved my shit out of Coinbase wallets because of doubts about that. Honestly though I just want to GTFO of crypto at this point…

Get out, man. Learn investment theory. All you need is a couple of index funds and bonds. Investing isn't supposed to be exciting or make you rich quick.

> All you need is a couple of index funds and bonds.

Ah, spoken like a true middle class Boglehead.

VTI/VOO will not change your life, even after 30 years. Broad market ETFs are not worth the risk.

You’re better off doing bonds (little to no risk) or crypto (high risk, more likely for life-changing generational wealth compared, even compared to FAANG SWE TC).

Re: FTX faces potential hack, sees mysterious outflows totaling more than $600M

#549

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Madoff recovery is 88.35%. See: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-announces-... . Many of Madoff's victims exaggerated their loses. If they invested $1MM at a claimed return of 15% for 6 years, they would claim they lost $2MM, not the $1MM principal. (I just hope our Government doesn't try to bail out crypto speculators!)

I honestly don't understand why any speculators get bailed out ever. They're in it for above-market profits, how is it that they don't have to accept the risk?

Madoff's victims weren't bailed out with Government money, they recovered assets from Madoff. (It was with Government effort though, including "clawing back" money from other Madoff customers who had actual gains!)

Re: FTX faces potential hack, sees mysterious outflows totaling more than $600M

#550

Surely it's not a coincidence that on the day FTX announces bankruptcy, this gigantic hack occurs? Some folks in this thread are speculating this might've been an inside job. I suspect, it's likelier that hackers had been aware of a vulnerability for some time, had a plan to drain these funds, but decided to hasten the timeline on the basis of the news FTX was going under.

From a technical standpoint, how difficult it is to hack your own company? What would you do, if you spent years building a Crypto/Ponzi scam and that you were the first to know that it was going to crumble? Let it go and face the consequences? Or try to save a few bucks knowing that you don't have much more to lose if it fails?

> From a technical standpoint, how difficult it is to hack your own company?

It would be easy. If you're the founder might have special access to the keys, in fact you probably need to for emergency purposes. Whether that's a "hack" I don't know, it seems to just be theft.

The real question is what do you do with the fact that you have the keys? If you are tempted to nick all the money, you might end up in a bad place.

Post reply on HN