Bybit's $1.4B Hack: Community Divided Over Ethereum Rollback
1min read Bybit, a leading cryptocurrency exchange, has been in the spotlight following a recent $1.4 billion hack linked to the Lazarus Group. The incident has sparked a debate within the crypto community, with Bybit CEO Ben Zhou floating the idea of rolling back the Ethereum blockchain to reverse the hack's effects. The question remains: will the community support this controversial proposal?
In the wake of the hack, whales have accumulated 140,000 ETH, indicating a notable market shift. Bybit has responded by offering a $140 million bounty to recover stolen funds and mitigate losses. The breach triggered a wave of withdrawals as investors rushed to exit the platform.
Bybit CEO Ben Zhou has announced efforts to recover the stolen assets, including launching a bounty program, collaborating with law enforcement, and engaging with the Ethereum Foundation to explore potential solutions. Zhou has also addressed the possibility of rolling back the Ethereum blockchain to reverse the hack's effects, suggesting that it should be a voting process decided by the community.
Arthur Hayes, co-founder of BitMEX and a significant ETH holder, has joined the fray by reaching out to Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin with a bold proposition. Hayes suggested considering a network rollback to help Bybit recover from its devastating $1.4 billion ETH hack. This idea has sparked debate within the crypto community, raising questions about the integrity and immutability of the Ethereum network.
The concept of rolling back the Ethereum blockchain isn't unprecedented. In 2016, following the infamous DAO hack, the Ethereum community initiated a hard fork that resulted in two separate blockchains: Ethereum Classic (ETC) and the current proof-of-stake Ethereum network. This historical precedent now fuels the debate on whether a similar rollback should be considered for the recent Bybit hack.
On-chain analytics firm Lookonchain revealed that the Lazarus Group currently controls around 489,395 ETH, valued at approximately $1.3 billion, along with 15,000 Mantle Restaked ETH (cmETH) spread across 54 wallets. Linked to North Korea, the group has been actively moving these stolen assets between wallets to obscure their origins and facilitate on-chain laundering.
Bybit has launched a 10% bounty program, offering up 
