CEX hijacked ETH money laundering process accelerates OTC hedging and high leverage short game market liquidity

On February 25th, the disposal process of stolen ETH from encrypted exchanges continued to trigger a chain reaction in the market. On-chain monitoring showed that hackers cleaned 89,500 ETH (about 224 million USD) through the THORChain cross-chain protocol within 2.5 days, accounting for 18% of the total stolen 499,000 ETH. Based on the current rate, the remaining 410,000 ETH may be exchanged for assets such as BTC/DAI within half a month. Market analysis indicates that attackers accelerate fund transfer through decentralized protocols, which may put pressure on the Anti Money Laundering risk control mechanism of cross-chain bridges.

 

On the same day, media reported that some traders had misjudged that Bybit would buy back a large amount of ETH in the open market to make up for the stolen gap, but the actual demand was completed through over the counter (OTC), which provided the exchange with a liquidity buffer of about $1.50 billion. This operation has forced some leveraged bulls to position squaring, becoming one of the factors that have pressured the recent price of ETH. On-chain data further shows that an anonymous whale established a short position in ETH on the Hyperliquid platform in January with a leverage of 50 times. The current profit has reached $48.20 million, and its positioning liquidation threshold is at $4056.8. The current price fluctuation risk exposure is significant.

 

The current market long and short game into a new stage, hacker proceeds disposal process, high leverage short positioning position squaring line and other factors will become the core variables of short-term price trends.