The hacker behind the $46 million Mercado Bitcoin breach has moved approximately $8 million in Ethereum to new wallets, according to Arkham. Investigators have frozen more than $9 million of the stolen assets, but the attacker still controls millions across several blockchains.
Arkham reported on November 3 that the Mercado Bitcoin attacker transferred roughly $8 million in ETH to new wallets. The platform asked whether the funds could eventually reach Tornado Cash, but its update did not confirm any deposit into the protocol.
Transfers tied to the attacker's wallets
The latest activity includes a transfer of approximately 2,900 ETH, valued at $6.52 million, plus smaller moves of 470 ETH and 200 ETH. The transfers shown in Arkham's update involved wallets attributed to the attacker.
Arkham's data shows the attacker still holds a portfolio valued at roughly $46 million. Lookonchain said the wallet includes approximately 372.99 billion PEPE tokens valued at $1.79 million, along with 12,820 AAVE worth $1.61 million and 769,950 PENDLE worth $1.35 million.
Lookonchain warned that these altcoins, including PEPE, AAVE, PENDLE, VIRTUAL and ONDO, could face selling pressure if the attacker liquidates them.
More than $9 million frozen
Chainalysis said in a November 2 report that it worked directly with Mercado Bitcoin and contacted law enforcement within 30 minutes of identifying addresses with freezable assets. It also coordinated with Tether, Paxos, Circle, Ripple and Anchorage Digital.
According to Chainalysis, Tether froze more than $9 million in assets linked to the attack. The initial response had already secured approximately $4 million in stablecoins.
How the breach unfolded
The attack began on November 2, when an intruder gained unauthorized access to one of the exchange's systems and moved funds out of its wallets. Arkham's investigation showed the attacker first moved 2,852 ETH worth approximately $6.52 million from an exchange hot wallet, followed by $2.99 million in USDT and $2.24 million in USDC.
A Bitquery investigation estimated that approximately $48.5 million left exchange wallets across ten blockchains, against Arkham's initial estimate of at least $46 million.
The incident came four days after Binance suffered a separate security breach on October 29 that resulted in approximately $6.3 billion in stolen cryptocurrency.
Sources: crypto.news, Chainalysis, Bitquery
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