Major Cryptocurrency Exchange Bybit has seen a total outflow of over $ 5.5 billion after it suffered an almost $ 1.5 billion hack, which is believed to be from North Korea’s Lazarus group, drain its ether cold wallet.

The total assets traced on wallets associated with the exchange fell from around $ 16.9 billion to $ 11.2 billion at the time of writing, according to Defillama data. The exchange is now looking to understand exactly what happened.

In an X Spaces session, Bybit’s CEO Ben Zhou revealed that shortly after the incident, he urged to “all hands on the deck” to serve their clients with the processing of withdrawals and respond to inquiries about what was going on.

During the session, Zhou revealed that the security violation saw the hackers constituted with approx. 70% of their customers’ ether, which meant BYBT had to quickly secure a loan to process payouts. Still, Zhou found that ether wasn’t the most withdrawn token where most users instead withdrew stablecoin from Bybit.

The exchange noted Zhou, has the reserves to cover these withdrawals, but the crisis was elaborated in response to the incident, SAFE moved to temporarily close its smart wallet functionalities to “ensure absolute confidence in the safety of our platform.”

SAFE is a decentralized custody protocol that delivers smart contract wallets for digital asset management. Some exchanges integrated securely, which allows users to maintain custody of their funds and have multisig functionality to improve the security of their cold wallets.

While the stock exchange had reserves to back up users’ withdrawal, UST was $ 3 billion in a safe wallet that had just been closed when the wallet moved to understand the situation, according to Zhou.

On social media, Safe said that even though it “had not found proof that the official safe front end was compromised,” it was temporarily Close down “Certain functionalities” Without caution.

While Zhou and Bybit’s team figured out how to safely withdrew their $ 3 billion, the withdrawal was rising. Within two hours after the security break, the exchange faced requests to move over $ 100,000 from its platform, Zhou revealed.

In response to the situation, Zhou asked his security team to engage in security to “find a better way to get this money out.” The team ended up developing new software with code “Based on Etherscan” to verify the signatures “at a very manual level” to move stableecoins back to their wallet and cover the withdrawal.

The team team had to remain up all night in order to meet withdrawals, according to Zhou. As the exchange managed to move the $ 3 billion in stableecoin reserves, it faced a banking of “about 50%” of all funds within the stock exchange.

Zhou said the stock exchange since the incident has moved a significant amount of funds from safe cold wallets and now decides which system it will use to replace safely.

Pushing to “Roll back” ethereum wasn’t off the table

Since the security violation, Bybit has engaged the authorities. During the session, Zhou said that the Singporic authorities took the question “very seriously” and that he believes it has already been escalated with Interpol.

Blockchain analysis companies, including chainalysis, became engaged. Zhou said: “As long as Bybit is there and continues to track [the stolen ether]I hope we can get these funds back. “

In particular, he revealed that pushing to “scroll back” Ethereum Blockchain, suggested by some industry players on social media, including Bitmex co-founder Arthur Hayes, had been on the table for some time if the community agreed with it.

“I got my team to talk to the Vitalik and Ethereum Foundation to see if there are any recommendations they can offer to help. I really thank all these guys on Twitter and ask if there is an opportunity to roll back the chain. I’m not sure what was the answer to their side, but everything that would help we would try, ”Zhou said.

On the question of the “rolling back” chain Is even possible, Zhou replied he doesn’t know. “I’m not sure it’s a one-man decision based on blockchain spirit. It should be a job in the process of seeing what society wants, ”he said.

It is worth noting that a blockchain “rollback” refers to a state change that would allow the means to be recovered. While Rolling Bitcoin Blockchain is technically possible, such a state change in Ethereum would be more complicated in view of its smart contract interactions and state -based architecture.

Nevertheless, any state amendment will require agreement and probably lead to a contentious hard fork that draws criticism from society. This would probably divide Ethereum Blockchain into two networks, each with its own followers.

As for exactly what exactly caused hack to occur, is still unclear. Per Zhou has bybit’s laptops not been compromised. He said the movements of the transaction signatories have been investigated but appears to have been routine.

“We know that the reason is determined around the safe cold wallet. Whether it’s a problem with our laptops or on Safe’s side, we don’t know. ”Zhou added.