Circles delay freezing USDC and give bi-bit hackers room

Zachxbt, an investigator on the chain, noted that the circle had delayed the freeze of USDC addresses linked to the Bibit Exchange Hack. Despite their ability to freeze addresses and regain losses, funds can still move.

Chain investigator Zachxbt pointed out that the circle is not cooperating quickly enough with funding recovery from Bibit Hack. Some funds are held at USDC and can be frozen by the issuer. Current addresses, including funds from hacks, can still be traded for free, allowing hackers to wash the funds.

One of Zachxbt’s concerns is to return as much stolen funds as possible. Bibit has already managed to fill up ETH losses, but in principle they are seeking lost funds. Investigators aim to address the circle co-founder Jeremy Allerle and focus on the responsibility of the project to control losses.

USDC’s involvement in the Buybit Hack arrives at a time when Circle aims to evolve Stablecoin into a fully legalized payment tool. USDC is a preferred stubcoin in Europe and was recently recognized by the Dubai Financial Services Authority. USDC’s Stablecoin has grown with 3.1b tokens over the past three months. This is primarily due to publications in Solana.

ZACHXBT traces active USDC addresses linked to hacker activity

The USDC address identified by ZachxBT holds only 115K tokens. That’s a small amount compared to the $1.5 billion hack size. There is still time to collect the funds. And even a total of $115,000 can be related to other types of hacking.

The possibility of freezing funds from USDC was initially considered a risk, but Stablecoin has the ability to stop bad actors and recover tokens to their owners. So far, USDC has banned estimation 268 addressestargeting bad actors and responding based on blockchain data is unobtrusive.

ZachxBT tracked the address based on the original forwarding of ETH. USDCs may be chosen as secondary assets and may be frozen and reissued. Despite the threat of freezing, the bad actors still use two major idiots, aiming to act quickly before the funds are intercepted.

Currently 0xda2e has a 338k USDC after receiving an additional 222.9k USDC after my post.

1). 0xda12 received 204.91 ETH from 0xe41b 31 hours ago on the next transaction…

– Zachxbt (@zachxbt) February 28, 2025

For the past six years since USDC’s launch, Crypto users have remained skeptical of the freeze function specific to USDC tokens. In theory, Circle can choose to freeze addresses for some reason. However, this time, token issuers are not careful of small funding leaks. Circle is working on a large scale, often publishing $250 million in mint daily, with little attention paid to smaller holdings. The circle still supports the investigation of Bibit and provides clues on how to track funds.

Zachxbt pointed out that Tether has already responded and is frozen 106k USDT. Previously, Tether was intended to be non-censored, but the increased use of fraud has resulted in the decision to target known addresses linked to bad actors. Tether CEO Paolo Aldoino announcement The first assets will freeze on February 22nd immediately after the hack. Follow Zachxbt’s advice to freeze your address.

The Crypto protocol assisted in hack recovery. One of the biggest amounts blocked was for $43 million metal. Mantle Protocol. The tokens worked quickly to prevent the transfer from 8 hours as a precautionary measure and prevent hackers from exploiting their own CMETH smart contracts.

Unfortunately, other funds such as Meth and Eth cannot be frozen and can be mixed, exchanged or hidden in other ways and freely hidden. Hackers also moved funds through Dai, a Stablecoin issued by Maker/Sky Protocol. Dai remains distributed and has no freezing mechanism other than blacklist addresses. Dai Stablecoin is also one of the most frequently mixed assets through tornado cash.

Several other projects continued to have technically possible fund freezes. Thorchain blocked all blacklisted addresses to prevent the funds from being mixed and hidden. Changenow Dex intercepted 34 ETH. Fixedfloat Exchange frozen 120k with Sixcoins usdt and USDC, but no Circle support. Coinex and Bitget have frozen blacklist addresses.