TL;DR
- A wallet linked to the Nomad bridge hack in 2022 transferred 14,500 ETH, approximately $35.5 million, to Tornado Cash.
- The funds, originally in DAI, were converted to ETH and sent in parts to Tornado Cash to avoid tracking.
- The incident highlights the vulnerabilities in crypto bridges and the need to improve security on these platforms.
A recent transfer of 14,500 Ethereum (ETH) linked to the 2022 Nomad bridge hack has caught the attention of the community. The move involves the transfer of approximately $35.5 million in ETH to Tornado Cash, a coin-mixing service that was sanctioned by U.S. authorities.
The wallet in question was funded with $39.75 million in DAI last Monday, according to data from Arkham Intelligence. The funds were sent from an address previously identified as the Nomad bridge exploiter and were subsequently converted to ETH using the CoW trading protocol in $2 million tranches. This type of movement, which fragments transactions into multiple smaller parts, reflects a common strategy to avoid detection and tracking by authorities and blockchain analysts.
#PeckShieldAlert #NomadBridge exploiter-labeled address has transferred 14.5K $ETH (worth ~$35.2M) to #Tornadocash pic.twitter.com/beiYFxsAPb
— PeckShieldAlert (@PeckShieldAlert) August 8, 2024
Nomad, Ronin and the Weakness of Bridges
Tornado Cash, the tool used to obscure the trail of these transactions, was sanctioned in 2022 by the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). Tornado Cash allows users to anonymize their transfers by distributing the funds across multiple wallets over time, which significantly complicates the tracking of transactions on the blockchain.
The 2022 Nomad bridge hack was a significant event in the crypto industry. With an estimated total loss of $200 million. The attackers exploited a vulnerability in the bridge’s logic, allowing withdrawals of funds that did not belong to them. This incident highlighted the risks of crypto bridge technology, which. While essential for interoperability between blockchains, has proven to be a weak point in terms of security.
This is not an isolated case, as in the same year. The Ronin bridge suffered an even larger exploit, with losses of $625 million. It is imperative to strengthen security measures in crypto bridges. Which have emerged as an attractive target for hackers due to the complexity and novelty of their technology. As the sector continues to grow. Protecting these systems becomes crucial to ensuring the integrity and trust in transactions within the industry.
